Deep History of America’s Deep State

Exclusive: The idea of an elitist Deep State – erasing a “mistake” by the people – pervades current efforts to remove buffoonish President Trump, but the concept has deep historical roots dating from the Founding, writes Jada Thacker.

By Jada Thacker

Everybody seems to be talking about the Deep State these days. Although the term appears to have entered the lexicon in the late 1990s, for years it referred only to shady foreign governments, certainly not to our own “indispensable nation.”

An artist’s rendering of the Constitutional Convention in 1787

Does the sudden presence of an American Deep State – loosely defined as an unelected elite that manipulates the elected government to serve its own interests – pose a novel, even existential, threat to democracy?

Not exactly. The threat seems real enough, but it’s nothing new. Consider these facts: 230 years ago, an unelected group of elite Americans held a secretive meeting with an undisclosed agenda. Their purpose was not merely to manipulate lawful government in their own interests, but to abolish it altogether. In its place, they would install a radically undemocratic government – a “more perfect” government, they said – better suited to their investment portfolios.

History does not identify these conspirators as the Deep State. It calls them the Founders. The Founders did not consider themselves conspirators, but “republicans” – not in reference to any political party, but rather to their economic station in society. But their devotion to “republicanism” was transparently self-serving. A current college text, The American Journey: A History of the United States, explains though does not explicate “republican ideology”:

“Their main bulwark against tyranny was civil liberty, or maintaining the right of the people to participate in government. The people who did so, however, had to demonstrate virtue. To eighteenth century republicans, virtuous citizens were those who were focused not on their private interests but rather on what was good for the public as a whole.

“They were necessarily property holders, since only those individuals could exercise an independence of judgment impossible for those dependent upon employers, landlords, masters, or (in the case of women and children) husbands and fathers.” [Emphasis supplied]

Republicanism was a handy idea if you happened to be a master or a landlord, who were the only persons this ideology considered “virtuous” enough to vote or hold political office. Thus, “republicanism” – virtually indistinguishable from today’s “neoliberalism” – created the original Deep State in the image of the economic system it was designed to perpetuate.

How this was accomplished is not a comforting tale. But it cannot be related nor understood without an appreciation of the historical context in which it occurred.

Masters and Servants

Post-colonial America was predominantly agrarian, and about 90 percent of the population was farmers. (The largest city in 1790 was New York, with a whopping population of 33,000 residents.) There was a small middle class of artisans, shopkeepers, and even a handful of industrial workers, but the politically and economically powerful people were the relatively few big-time merchants and landowners – who also fulfilled the function of bankers.

Gouverneur Morris, a delegate to the Constitutional Convention and a key drafter of the Preamble. (Painting by Edward Dalton Marchant)

America was not quite a feudal society, but it resembled one. Commoners did not call at the front doors of the rich, but were received around back. Most states had official religions, some with compulsory church attendance backed by fines. Commodity-barter was the currency of the day for the vast majority. Debtors were imprisoned. Parents sold their children into bondage. It wasn’t what most people think of when they hear “Yankee Doodle Dandy.”

All states restricted voting only to men who owned a requisite amount of property, while the majority: un-widowed women, servants, and tenants owned no property. Moreover, most states had property requirements for eligibility to elective office, some with the higher offices reserved for those with the most property. Such restrictions had discriminated against the urban underclass and farmers since the beginning of American colonization.

Nobody at the time characterized this land of masters and servants as a “democracy.” Indeed, the master class considered “democracy” synonymous with “mob rule.” But not everybody was happy with “republican virtue” in post-war America, least of all the slaves of the “virtuous.”

The Revolutionary War had stirred passions among the servant class for social and economic liberty, but when the war ended nothing much had changed. In fact, the war proved not to have been a revolution at all, but represented only a change from British overlords to American overlords. Edmund Morgan, considered the dean of American history in the colonial era, characterized the “non-Revolutionary War” this way:

“The fact the lower ranks were involved in the contest should not obscure the fact that the contest itself was generally a struggle for office and power between members of an upper class: the new against the established.”

About 1 percent of the American population had died in a war fought, they had been told, for “liberty.” (Compare: if the U.S. lost the same proportion of its population in a war today, the result would be over threemillion dead Americans.) Yet after the war, economic liberty was nowhere in sight.

Moreover, the very concept of “liberty” meant one thing to a farmer and quite another to his rich landlord or merchant. Liberty for a common farmer – who was generally a subsistence farmer who did not farm to make money, but rather only to provide the necessities of life for his family – meant staying out of debt. Liberty for merchants and property owners – whose business it was to make monetary profits – meant retaining the ability to lend or rent to others and access to the power of government to enforce monetary repayment from debtors and tenants.

Much like the American Indians who had first communally owned the property now occupied by American subsistence farmers, agrarian debtors faced the unthinkable prospect of losing their ability to provide for their families (and their vote) if their land were confiscated for overdue taxes or debt. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “How Debt Conquered America.”]

Loss of their land would doom a freeholder to a life of tenancy. And the servitude of tenants and slaves differed mainly as a function of iron and paper: slaves were shackled by iron, tenants were shackled by debt contracts. But iron and paper were both backed by law.

By the end of the Revolutionary War, as few as a third of American farmers owned their own land. When the urban elites began to foreclose on the debts and raise the taxes of subsistence farmers – many of whom had fought a long and excruciating war to secure their “liberty” – it amounted to a direct assault on the last bastion of Americans’ economic independence.

The Original Great Recession

After the war, British merchants and banks no longer extended credit to Americans. Moreover, Britain refused to allow Americans to trade with its West Indies possessions. And, to make matters worse, the British Navy no longer protected American ships from North African pirates, effectively closing off Mediterranean commerce. Meanwhile, the American navy could not protect American shipping, in the Mediterranean or elsewhere, because America did not happen to possess a navy.

In the past, American merchants had obtained trade goods from British suppliers by “putting it on a tab” and paying for the goods later, after they had been sold. Too many Americans had reneged on those tabs after the Revolution, and the British now demanded “cash on the barrelhead” in the form of gold and silver coin before they would ship their goods to America.

As always, Americans had limited coin with which to make purchases. As the credit crunch cascaded downwards, wholesalers demanded cash payment from retailers, retailers demanded cash from customers. Merchants “called in” loans they had made to farmers, payable in coin. Farmers without coin were forced to sell off their hard-earned possessions, livestock, or land to raise the money, or risk court-enforced debt collection, which included not only the seizure and sale of their property but also imprisonment for debt.

The most prominent result of Americans’ war for “liberty” turned out to be a full-blown economic recession that lasted a decade. Even so, the recession would not have posed a life-threatening problem for land-owning subsistence farmers, who lived in materially self-sufficient, rural, communal societies. But when state governments began to raise taxes on farmers, payable only in unavailable gold and silver coin, even “self-sufficient” farmers found themselves at risk of losing their ability to feed their families.

Debt, Speculation, and the Deep State

The Continental Congress had attempted to pay for its war with Britain by printing paper money. The British undermined these so-called “Continental” dollars, not only by enticing American merchants with gold and silver, but by counterfeiting untold millions of Continental dollars and spending them into circulation. The aggregate result was the catastrophic devaluation of the Continental dollar, which by war’s end was worthless.

In the meantime, both Congress and state governments had borrowed to pay for “liberty.” By war’s end, war debt stood at $73 million, $60 million of which was owed to domestic creditors. It was a staggering sum of money. In his now studiously ignored masterpiece, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, historian Charles A. Beard showed that domestically-held war debt was equivalent to 10 percent of the value of all the surveyed land holdings (including houses) in the entire United States at the time.

The war debt carried interest, of course – which is a problem with debt if you owe it, but is a feature of debt if it is owed to you. Not only was “freedom not free” – it came with dividends attached for Deep State investors. This should sound at least vaguely familiar today.

President George Washington

As Continental paper money lost its value, Congress and state governments continued to pay for “liberty” with coin borrowed at interest. When that ran short, government paid only with promises to pay at a later date – merely pieces of paper that promised to pay coin (or land) at some indeterminate time after the war was won.

This was how the government supplied the troops (whenever it managed to do so) and also how it paid its troops. In actual practice, however, Congress often did not pay the troops anything, not even with paper promises, offering only verbal promises to pay them at the end of the war.

But war is never a money-making enterprise for government, and when it ended, the government was as broke as ever. So, it wrote its verbal promises on pieces of paper, and handed them to its discharged troops with a hearty Good Luck with That! Even so, Congress paid the soldiers in bonds worth only a fraction of the amount of time most had served, promising (again!) to pay the balance later – which it never did.

Thousands of steadfast, longsuffering troops were abandoned this way. Most had not been paid any money in years (if ever), and many were hundreds of miles from their homes – ill, injured, and starving – as they had been for months and years. Others literally were dressed only in rags or pieces of rags. Some carried paper promises of money; some carried paper promises of geographically distant land – none of which would be available until years in the future, if at all.

Seven-year Revolutionary War veteran Philip Mead described his plight in a bitter memoir entitled A Narrative of Some of the Adventures, Dangers and Sufferings of a Revolutionary Soldier: “We were absolutely, literally starved. I do solemnly declare that I did not put a single morsel of victuals in my mouth for four days and as many nights, except a little black birch bark which I gnawed off a stick of wood, if that can be called victuals. I saw several of the men roast their old shoes and eat them….

“When the country had drained the last drop of service it could screw out of the poor soldiers, they were turned adrift like old worn-out horses, and nothing said about land to pasture them on.”

Was this liberty? To impoverished veterans, “liberty” looked bleak, indeed. To speculators in government bonds, liberty looked like a golden opportunity, quite literally so.

Vultures possessed of coin swooped in and bought a dollar’s worth of government promises for a dime, and sometimes for just a nickel. Speculators wheedled promises not only from desperate veterans (many of whom sold their promises merely to obtain food and clothes on their long trudge home), but from a host of people whose goods or services had been paid with IOUs.

Optimistic speculators cadged bonds from pessimistic speculators. The more desperate people became during the recession, the more cheaply they sold their promises to those who were not.

Speculators expected their investments, even those made with now-worthless paper money, to be paid in gold or silver coin. What’s more, “insiders” expected all those various government promises would eventually be converted – quietly, if possible – into interest-bearing bonds backed by a single, powerful taxing authority. All the Deep State needed now was a national government to secure the investment scheme. A man named Daniel Shays unwittingly helped to fulfil that need.

Rebellion and Backlash

Thomas Jefferson penned the famous sentence: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” He was not referring to heroic American Patriots charging up Bunker Hill against British bayonets. He was referring instead to American farmers – many of whom had been the starving soldiers in a war for forsaken liberty – taking their lives into their hands to oppose the tax policies of the government of Massachusetts in 1787. The principal leader of this revolt was a farmer and war veteran Daniel Shays.

General Benjamin Lincoln who led a force in 1787 to put down Shays’ Rebellion in western Massachusetts. (Painting by Charles Willson Peale)

In a sense, the most interesting thing about Shays’s Rebellion is that it was not a unique event.

The first notable example of agrarian revolt had been Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676 Virginia, when frontier farmers marched on the rich plantation owners of Jamestown, burned it to the ground, published their democratic “Declaration of the People,” and threatened to hang every elite “tyrant” on their list – which included some of the forefathers of America’s patriot Founders.

Historian Gary Nash reminds us Bacon’s Rebellion had echoes across early American history: “Outbreaks of disorder punctuated the last quarter of the 17th century, toppling established governments in Massachusetts, New York, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina.” Jimmy Carter, in The Hornet’s Nest, the only novel ever published by an American president, tells a similar story of the agony of dispossessed farmers in Georgia a century later.

Other farmers had rebelled in New Jersey in the 1740s; in the New York Hudson Valley rent wars in the 1750s and 1760s and concurrently in Vermont by Ethan Allen’s Green Mountain Boys; for a decade in North Carolina in the 1760s, where vigilantes called Regulators battled the government of the urban elite; and in Virginia in the 1770s. Likewise, American cities had been scenes of labor unrest, riots, and strikes for a century. American class rebellion, apparently unbeknownst to most history teachers in America, was closer to the rule than the exception.

Victory in the war against England only intensified the conflict between those who considered “liberty” as a necessary condition to live without debt, against those who considered “liberty” to be their class privilege to grow rich from the debts others owed them. Howard Zinn, in his A People’s History of the United States describes the economic realities of Eighteenth Century America:

“The colonies, it seems, were societies of contending classes – a fact obscured by the emphasis, in traditional histories, on the external struggle against England, the unity of colonists in the Revolution. The country therefore was not ‘born free’ but born slave and free, servant and master, tenant and landlord, poor and rich.”

Although Shays’s Rebellion was not unique, it was a huge event, coming at a time when the rich were owed a great deal of money by impoverished governments. Pressured by rich bondholders and speculators, the government of Massachusetts duly raised taxes on farmers. To make matters far worse, the taxes were to be paid only in gold or silver – which was completely out of the question for most western farmers, who had no way to obtain coined money.

When the farmers complained, their complaints were ignored. When farmers petitioned the government to issue paper money and accept it as payment of debts and taxes, the government refused their petitions. When the farmers pleaded for the passage of “legal tender laws” that would allow them to settle their debts or taxes with their labor, they were rebuffed.

But when farmers could not pay what they did not have, the Massachusetts’s courts ordered their land seized and auctioned. At last, the farmers understood the practical effect, if not the specific intent, of the tax: confiscation of their property and its transfer to the rich, to whom the government owed its interest-bearing debt. Government had become an armed collection agency.

To the utter dismay of the erstwhile proudly tax-rebellious Patriots, the farmers too rebelled. Shaysites forcibly shut down the tax courts that were condemning them to servitude. The rich responded by loaning the destitute government more money (at interest!) to pay a militia force to oppose Shays’s rebels.

At this point, tax rebels abandoned reform for radical revolution and – in a resounding echo of Nathaniel Bacon’s century-old Declaration of the People – pledged to march on Boston and burn it to the ground. This was no Tea Party vandalism, stage-managed by well-to-do Bostonians like Samuel Adams. It was a full-blown, grassroots agrarian revolution a century in the making.

The urban bond-holding merchant-class in Boston and elsewhere panicked. And none panicked more than bond speculators, who intimately understood the rebels threatened their “virtuous” republican “liberty” to extract profit from others. Historian Woody Holton exposes the astonishing callousness of one of America’s major bond speculators in his nationally acclaimed Unruly Americans and the Origin of the Constitution:

“As a bondholder, Abigail Adams would benefit immensely if her fellow Massachusetts citizens [paid the tax] levied by the legislature in March 1786, but she also saw compliance as a sacred duty. If Massachusetts taxpayers were ‘harder-prest by publick burdens than formerly,’ she wrote, ‘they should consider it as the price of their freedom’.”

Abigail Adams, wife of the second President John Adams, in a portrait by Benjamin Blythe.

Future First Lady Abigail Adams was not alone in thinking freedom came with dividends payable to her account. Historian David Szatmary reminds us in his Shays Rebellion; The Makings of an Agrarian Insurrection that the former Patriot leadership, especially those in the merchant class, were among the first to advocate violence against democratic rebellion.

Said a published opinion piece at the time: “When we had other rulers, committees and conventions of the people were lawful – they were then necessary; but since I myself became a ruler, they cease to be lawful – the people have no right to examine my conduct.”

Showboat Patriot and bond speculator Samuel Adams –former mastermind of the Boston Tea Party and erstwhile propagandist against unfair British taxes (as well as cousin to Abigail’s husband John Adams) – sponsored a Massachusetts law that allowed sheriffs to kill tax protesters outright.

Another rich bondholder and speculator, ex-Revolutionary War General Henry Knox (the fitting namesake of Fort Knox, the famous repository of gold bullion) wrote an alarming letter to his former commander George Washington, accusing the Shays’s rebels of being “levelers” (which was the closest term to “communists” then in existence). He informed Washington that the country needed a much stronger government (and military) to prevent any riffraff challenge to the elite. His message was not wasted on General Washington, America’s richest slave owner.

In the end, the Congress, under the Articles of Confederation, could raise no money from the states to provide an army, but the privately-financed, for-profit Massachusetts militia successfully defeated Shays’s rebels. Still, the nearly hysterical fear of democratic economic revolution had been planted in the minds of the masters. Shays’s Rebellion proved to be the last straw for bond speculators whose profits were jeopardized by democracy.

Worse even, the governments of many other states were beginning to cave under intense democratic pressure from rebellious debtors. Some states were entertaining laws that prevented the seizure of property for debt; others were creating paper money in order to break the gold and silver monopoly. Rhode Island not only voted in a paper money system, but threatened to socialize all commercial business enterprises in the state.

In response to the threat of populism, the “virtuous” elite reacted decisively – not to remedy the plight of debtors, of course – but to secure their own profits from them. Accordingly, in 1786, five states sent delegates to meet at Annapolis, Maryland, just as Shays’s Rebellion veered into revolution. This unelected minority called for Congress to authorize a convention to be held in Philadelphia the next year “for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation.” The Articles were never to be “revised.” They were to be scrapped altogether by the Deep State.

The Deep State Conspires

Thanks to Charles A. Beard’s An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, we know quite a lot about the status of the 55 men who conspired to draft the Constitution. But the very first thing we need to know is that they were not authorized by “We the People” simply because nobody had voted for them; all were political appointees.

James Madison

Nor were they even a representative sample of the people. Not a single person in the Convention hall “worked for a living,” nor was female, nor was a person of color. Only one claimed to be a “farmer,” the current occupation of about 90 percent of the population. Most were lawyers. Go figure.

If the delegates represented anybody at all, it was the economic elite: 80 percent were bondholders; 44 percent were money-lenders; 27 percent were slave owners; and 25 percent were real estate speculators. Demographically, the 39 who finally signed the final draft of the Constitution constituted .001 percent of the American population reported in the 1790 census. George Washington, who presided, was arguably the wealthiest man in the country. Deep State gamblers all.

And the stakes were high. Recall that the face value of outstanding domestic government bonds in 1787 was $60 million, equivalent to 10 percent of the total improved land value of the country. But these bonds, for the most part, had been obtained by speculators at a fraction of face value. Beard very conservatively estimated the profit of speculators – if the bond were redeemed at face value – would have been some $40 million. Expressed as the same proportion of total improved land value at the time of the Founding, the expected profit from government bonds held then would equal at least $3 trillion today. Tax free.

We still do not know everything that transpired at the convention. No one was assigned to keep a record of what was discussed. Reportedly, even the windows to the meeting hall were nailed shut to prevent eavesdropping – though there would be “leaks.” Because of its secrecy and its unauthorized nature, some historians have called the convention “the second American Revolution.” But revolutions are public, hugely participatory events. This was a coup d’état behind locked doors.

Most delegates presumably understood their undisclosed purpose was to dump the whole system of confederated government (which had cost 25,000 American lives to secure) into a dustbin. They evidently did not intend to obey their instructions “solely to revise” the Articles because a number of them showed up at the convention with drafts for a new constitution in hand.

The conspirators’ ultimate goal was to replace the Confederation with what they later euphemized as “a more perfect Union” – designed from the outset to protect their class interests and to ensure the new government possessed all the power necessary to perpetuate the existing oligarchy.

At the Convention, Alexander Hamilton captured the prevailing sentiment: “All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and well-born; the other the mass of the people … turbulent and changing, they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in the Government. … Nothing but a permanent body can check the imprudence of democracy.”

A portrait of Alexander Hamilton by John Trumbull, 1792.

Hamilton further proposed that both the President and the Senate be appointed (not elected) for life. His vision was but half a step removed from monarchy. Though not a Convention delegate, John Jay, Hamilton’s political ally, slaveowner, and the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, stated the purpose of “republicanism” with brutal brevity: “The people who own the country ought to govern it.”

The Founders never once envisioned any such a thing as “limited government” – unless perhaps in the sense that the power of government was to be limited to their own economic class. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Right’s Made-up Constitution.”]

In Towards an American Revolution: Exposing the Constitution & Other Illusions, historian Jerry Fresia sums the Founders’ views succinctly: “The vision of the Framers, even for Franklin and Jefferson who were less fearful of the politics of the common people than most, was that of a strong centralized state, a nation whose commerce and trade stretched around the world. In a word, the vision was one of empire where property owners would govern themselves.” [Emphasis supplied]

Self-government by the people was to remain permanently out of the question. The Deep State was to govern itself. “We the People,” a phrase hypocritically coined by the ultra-aristocrat Gouverneur Morris, would stand forever after as an Orwellian hoax.

The tricky task of the hand-picked delegates was to hammer out a radical new system of government that would superficially resemble a democratic republic, but function as an oligarchy.

William Hogeland’s excellent Founding Finance, recounts the anti-democratic vehemence expressed at the Convention: “On the first day of the meeting that would become known as the United States Constitutional Convention, Edmund Randolph of Virginia kicked off the proceedings […] ‘Our chief danger,’ Randolph announced, ‘arises from the democratic parts of our constitutions. … None of the constitutions’ – he meant those of the states’ governments – ‘have provided sufficient checks against the democracy.’”

No wonder they nailed the windows shut. It should be no surprise that the word “democracy” does not appear once in the entire U.S. Constitution, or any of its Amendments, including the Bill of Rights. Accordingly, the Constitution does not once refer to the popular vote, and it did not guarantee a single person or group suffrage until the adoption of the 15th Amendment in 1870, over 80 years after ratification. The Preamble aside, the Founders used the phrase “the People” only a single time (Art. I, Sec. 2).

It has been suggested the word “democracy” had a different meaning then than it has now. It did not. “Democracy” to the Convention delegates meant the same thing as it does today: “rule by the people.” That’s why they detested it. The delegates considered themselves the patriarchs of “republicanism,” the ideology that rejected participation in government by people like their wives, servants, tenants, slaves, and other non-propertied inferiors. No doubt, the delegates passionately disagreed on many things, but the “fear and loathing” of democracy was not one of them. Then or now.

The Deep State’s Specific Goals

Embedded within the Founders’ broadly anti-democratic agenda were four specific goals. These were not a list of items jotted down in advance, but were derived by group consensus as the minimum requirements necessary to achieve the Deep State’s ultimate agenda.

Thomas Jefferson in a 1800 portrait by Rembrandt Peale.

To camouflage the stark oligarchic nationalism the measures intended, the Founders disingenuously styled themselves “Federalists.” But nothing about these measures concerned a “federation” of sovereign states; taken together, they were intended to demolish the existing “perpetual” confederation, not to re-create it more effectively.

National government with limited citizen participation. Of all the measures required to achieve a national oligarchy, this was the most daunting. It was achieved by a wide array of provisions.

The Electoral College. The President and Vice President are not elected by popular vote, but by electors – then and now. For example, when George Washington was first elected President, the American population was 3.9 million. How many of those folks voted for George? Exactly 69 persons – which was the total number of electors voting at the time. (Art. I, Sec. 3)

Bi-Cameral Congress. Congress is bi-cameral, composed of two “houses” – the House of Representatives and the Senate. Under the original Constitution, the House members represented the people who vote for them, while the Senate represented states, not persons, and was therefore not a democratic body, at all. It was generally expected that the Senate would “check” the democratic House. Indeed, this was the entire purpose of bi-cameralism wherever it has existed. (Art. I, Secs. 1 and 2)

State Appointment of Senators. Senators were originally appointed by state legislatures (until the 17th Amendment in 1913). It was expected that the Senate would function in Congress as the House of Lords functioned in Parliament: the voice of the aristocracy. Even though Senators are now popularly elected, it is far more difficult to challenge an incumbent because of the prohibitive expense of running a state-wide campaign. (Art. I, Sec. 3)

Appointment of the Judiciary. All federal judges are appointed for life terms by the President and confirmed by the (originally undemocratic) Senate. (Art. III, Sec. 1)

Paucity of Representation. Most undemocratic of all was the extreme paucity of the total number of House members. The House originally was composed of only 65 members, or one member per 60,000 persons. Today, there are 435 members, each representing about 700,000 persons. Thus, current House representation of the public is 12 times less democratic than when the Constitution was written – and it was poor (at best) then.

Compare: The day before the Constitution was ratified, the people of the 13 United States were represented by about 2,000 democratically elected representatives in their various state legislatures (1:1950 ratio); the day after ratification, the same number of people were to be represented by only 65 representatives in the national government (1:60000). In quantitative terms, this represents more than a 3,000 percent reduction of democratic representation for the American people. (Art. I, Sec. 2)

Absence of Congressional Districts. Although House members now run for election in equal-populated districts, the districts were created by Congress, not the Constitution. Until the 1960s, some House members were elected at-large (like Senators). This disadvantaged all but the richest and best-known candidates from winning. (Not referenced in Constitution)

Absence of Recall, Initiative and Referendum. The Constitution does not allow the people to vote to recall (un-elect) a Congress member, demand a Congressional vote on any issue (propose an initiative) or vote directly in a referendum on any issue (direct democracy). (Not referenced in Constitution)

Absence of Independent Amendment Process. One of the reasons Americans now have professional politicians is that the Constitution does not provide a way for “the people” to amend it without the required cooperation of a sitting Congress. At the Constitutional convention, Edmund Randolph of Virginia (surprisingly) proposed that the people be afforded a way to amend the Constitution without the participation of Congress. This excellent idea, however, was not adopted. (Art. V)

All of these provisions were completely new in the American experience. For 150 years or more, citizen participation in government, independent militias, and the issuance of paper money had been the prerogative of the several, independent colonies/states – while direct external taxation had been universally and strenuously resisted. When the British Crown had threatened to curtail colonial prerogatives, the very men who now conspired for national power had risen in armed rebellion. The hypocrisy was stunning. And people took note of the fact.

Consent of the Minority

One of the note-takers was Robert Yates, a New York delegate to the Convention, who had walked out in protest. Not long afterwards, Yates (who owned no government bonds) stated his objection to the new Constitution: “This government is to possess absolute and uncontrollable power, legislative, executive and judicial, with respect to every object to which it extends. …

“The government then, so far as it extends, is a complete one. … It has the authority to make laws which will affect the lives, the liberty, and the property of every man in the United States; nor can the constitution or the laws of any state, in any way prevent or impede the full and complete execution of every power given.”

A photograph showing the whipping scars on the back of an African-American slave.

At least half of the American population (collectively called “Anti-federalists”) thought the Constitution was a terrible idea. To be sure, well-to-do Anti-federalists like Yates were not overtaxed farmers, and their objections were often based upon the defense of states’ rights, not peoples’ economic rights. Most Anti-federalists, however, seemed alarmed that the Constitution contained no guarantee of the basic political rights they had enjoyed under the British Empire, such as freedom of speech or trial by jury.

The debate between supporters and critics of the Constitution raged for a year, while partisan newspapers published articles both pro and con. A collection of 85 “pro” articles is known now as The Federalist Papers, which were written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay. Although these articles have been studied almost as religious relicts by historians, they do not tell us “what the Constitution really means.”

The Constitution means what it says. The Federalist Papers are sales brochures, written by lawyers trying to get others to “buy” the Constitution. The same can be said about a similar collection of “Anti-federalist Papers,” from which Yates’s quote above was taken. In any event, it is up to the courts to interpret the Constitution, not lawyers with vested interests.

In due course, the Anti-federalists put their collective foot down. There would be no hope of ratification without amendments guaranteeing fundamental political – but not economic – rights. Although Hamilton argued a guarantee of rights would be “dangerous,” James Madison convinced the Federalists that agreeing to guarantee a future Bill of Rights would be much safer that meddling with the text of the current document, which might entail unraveling its core nationalist, anti-democratic agenda. And so, a deal was struck.

Even so, the battle over the ratification of the Constitution was not ultimately decided by the people of the nation. Although the people of the several states had not voted to authorize the Convention, or the document it had produced, the Founders had been incredibly arrogant, not to mention sly. Not only had they presented the unauthorized document to the states as a take-it-or-leave-it proposition (no changes allowed), but the document itself demanded that only special state “conventions” could ratify it – not the majority popular vote of the people.

Specifying ratification by conventions meant the people would be voting for convention delegates, who would in turn vote for ratification. This was tantamount to turning ratification into a popularity contest between convention delegates, rather than a democratically direct vote on the document, itself. Moreover, ratification by convention would present the possibility that a minority of the people in a state (those in favor of the Constitution) might “pack” a convention with delegates, who would then approve of a document establishing a government for all.

Electoral shenanigans were not just hypothetical possibilities. In Philadelphia, for example, a mob kidnapped elected legislators who were boycotting a convention vote, physically dragged them into the state house, and tied them to their chairs in order to force a convention vote. Other, more subtle methods of manipulation occurred elsewhere, notably the disenfranchisement of voters through property qualifications.

Over a hundred years ago, Charles A. Beard completed his exhaustive study of the Constitution and confirmed that it most likely was ratified by a majority – of a minority of the people.

Among Beard’s final conclusions were these: “The Constitution was ratified by a vote of probably not more than one-sixth of the adult males….The leaders who supported the Constitution in the ratifying conventions represented the same economic groups as the members of the Philadelphia Convention….The Constitution was not created by ‘the whole people’ as the jurists [judges] have said; neither was it created by ‘the states’ as Southern nullifiers long contended; but it was the work of a consolidated group whose interests knew no state boundaries and were truly national in their scope.”

The Deep State, in other words. It was darkly appropriate that a document whose primary purpose was to defeat democratic rule was, itself, brought into force without a majoritarian vote.

In 1788, nine of the 13 states’ conventions ratified the Constitution (as specified in the Constitution’s own Article VII) and the document became the supreme law of the land for those nine states. By 1789, even the democratic holdout Rhode Island had followed suit. And America’s schoolchildren have been led to believe ever since that the Constitution is a sacred document, inspired and ordained by the public-spirited benevolence of Founding Fathers.

But this had been predicted. It had seemed painfully obvious to Eighteenth Century Genevan political philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau that constitutional government was the invention of the Deep State, its designated beneficiary.

Dripping with sarcasm, his virtuoso Discourse on Inequality explained the process: “[T]he rich man … at last conceived the deepest project that ever entered the human mind: this was to employ in his favour the very forces that attacked him, to make allies of his enemies…

“In a word, instead of turning our forces against ourselves, let us collect them into a sovereign power, which may govern us by wise laws, may protect and defend all the members of the association, repel common enemies, and maintain a perpetual concord and harmony among us.”

Rousseau penned these words in 1754, 33 years before Gouverneur Morris oversaw the drafting of the identical sales pitch that constitutes the Preamble to the United States Constitution: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Rousseau concludes: “All offered their necks to the yoke in hopes of securing their liberty; for though they had sense enough to perceive the advantages of a political constitution, they had not experience enough to see beforehand the dangers of it; those among them, who were best qualified to foresee abuses, were precisely those who expected to benefit by them….” [Emphasis added]

Does the Deep State pose an existential threat to American democracy today? Move along, folks – nothing new to see here.

Jada Thacker, Ed. D, is the author of Dissecting American History: A Theme-Based Narrative. He teaches History and Government at a college in Texas. Contact: jadathacker@sbcglobal.net

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134 comments for “Deep History of America’s Deep State”

Thank, you, thank you, Mr. Thacker, for publishing this. Now, if only we could gather up all the high school history books whose publication was funded by offshoots of the Rockefeller foundations and hold a massive, well-justified, book-burning party. I loved your comments here about Liberty meant the enforcement of debt contracts by the merchant banker class. Also loved the comment about American schoolchildren being taught that the Constitution is a sacred document … well, it IS sacred to the merchant priesthood.

Speaking of banksters, may I ask where and how did the rising European City-of-London Rothschild dynasty fit into the story of the nascent American elite class of the 17th and 18th century? I’m sure that the Rothschilds somehow were behind the invention of the U.S. government bond and I will assume that, for the sake of brevity, that part of the story had to be omitted here in this article.

greg julian

June 30, 2017 at 12:45

Thank you Charles Beard from which I taught the economic interpretation of the constitution to my students for over forty years. Great article, if only more people knew the origin of our nation. Keep the analysis alive, we need it more than ever.

Extremely enlightening. We cannot correct myth, and that apparently is what this country was founded on and continues to run on today.

KyRad

June 28, 2017 at 16:36

Excellent summary and exposure of the Constitutional Convention; Thacker provides crucial history that, unfortunately, is not found in high school or college introductory history texts. The Constitution was designed for the elites to rule from the beginning and that that intention holds true right up to today. See current administration Cabinet appointments.

sanford sklansky

June 27, 2017 at 20:34

This was an excellent article. However I think there were some comments that come across as quite conspiratorial when it comes to 9/11 and even the Kennedy, Not everything is a conspiracy.

The most “democratic” of all govt actions is also its most unlimited of all actions… warfare. Considering the record of governments in the past couple centuries, whether the half million Americans killed during the war to protect the Federal Govt, or the million (mostly freedmen) who died in the famine after it, or more recent atrocities, such as the million dead in Iraq, I can well-understand why the Founders feared govt power. Were they motivated as this Marxian screed would have it, to protect their economic interests (a right each person has) or by their understanding of history — Washington, Jefferson and the rest not only knew the history of, say the Roman Republic, they read it in the original languages — the Founders wisely sought checks and balances.

So, for example, Southern States were not allowed to count slaves at full number for representation in the House (thereby encouraging emancipation) while large States had to accept equal vote in the Senate with small States. The Electoral College was similarly established to prevent just what would have happened in 2016 with a “democratic” Presidential election — a few States, like California, would dominate.

All-in-all, whatever motivation we can ascertain from the words and actions of the Founders, the result was the one thing Marxian exegesis cannot stand: a government limited in power and scope; a people who still cherish liberty — with a Second Amendment that protects the First.

Very important article! Beard didn’t get it all right, but he got a lot right and presented his thesis in tentative terms, with suggestions for further research. Where particular people didn’t fit his stereotype, he said so. Robert McGuire has followed up. Albert Jay Nock’s Our Enemy the State should also be consulted.

My sense is that Jada hit some important notes with his article. Plutocrats are the wealthy. Oligarchs are the wealthy who rule (a small group of elites with connections). Since America’s founding back in 1607 and 1620, those with money, rhetorical skill, and group-think skills have ruled over the many. Our founding fathers were no different from those who originally arrived at Jamestown or Plymouth Rock (as to their human nature). But having said that, I would agree that our founding fathers did the best that they could given their situation (the times).

Today, we have evolved into a Agenda 2030 plutocracy where a few wealthy elites desire to rule the planet (not just America). Our Central Banks now control our cyber markets and we now have virtual money which gets created out-of-nothing (administrators consciousness). The few well-heeled elites who have been favored under our current cartel system, get to propose their vision for the planet. This vision is the Agenda 2030 program adopted by our United Nations in 2015 and made official policy as of January 1, 2016. Pope Francis has blessed this new global agenda program and all 193 nations of the U.N. have approved it.

So where is all this leading going forward? It appears that any type of democracy is ruled out and our NWO will be a few unelected elites ruling the entire planet (with the U.N. as the body for dialogue). Oligarchy is still with us and plutocracy is still with us. Nothing meaningful has changed since our founding. Jada hit the nail on the head IMO. D

This is all true and very informative. Part of our problem as USA-ans is that we not only ardently believe in the American mythology of American Exceptionalism but have a fundamental aversion to history. This is why it is so easy for people to accept, as fact, fictional works including movies, TV shows, popular histories and biographies, and, of course, school textbooks. History is whatever you want to believe–myth drives all ideas not just in popular culture but the academy.

Having said that the American Revolution was not just an attempt to “keep the people down” but to become a rich and prosperous nation. Yes, the aristocracy in the U.S. was interested in perpetuating its rule but its rule involved caring about the country as an ongoing enterprise. They viewed their rule as bringing people out of ignorance into light. These men were highly educated (far more than today’s elites) and many of them like Jefferson embodied the Enlightenment ideas that human beings could progress and the common people once exposed to education and the quest for knowledge would be the backbone of a virtuous republic. The Founders wanted to create a virtuous nation not just a Pottersville as the current elites seem to want.

This Deep State resemble, more than anything else, criminal gangs who intend to ruin the nation not uplift it. A staunch Federalist believed that eliminating human misery was a noble goal. Today’s oligarchs want to expand not diminish human misery and they do so far more actively and intentionally than the Founders. The Constitution until our most recent era did provide a solid scaffolding for human progress where the United States was able to be the vanguard country in the world to increase, not decrease, general human liberty. Sadly, starting with the Deep State coup d’etat in 1963 and finishing up with the Watergate Scandal, the movement of the aristocracy follows the narrative Christopher Lasch wrote about in *The Revolt of the Elite” which shows the evolution of the American aristocracy from mildly benign to actively malign.

Michael Morrissey

June 25, 2017 at 14:48

I just wrote a short article elaborating on what I said above at OpEdNews.com (“Deep State or Dream State?”).

Michael Morrissey

June 25, 2017 at 04:56

As I have said many times, the “Deep State” IS the state (see my essay “Deep State Doublethink” challenging Peter Scott’s use of the term, and my book “The Transparent Conspiracy”). What Thacker is talking about, though, is the so-called “public state,” which he (and Noam Chomsky et al.) rightly describe as plutocratic from the beginning.

What other people (like Scott) mean by “Deep State” is a conspiratorial force within that plutocracy. My point in saying the “Deep State” is the state is simply to disabuse people of the notion that there is anything else, that is, of the illusion that there is a “public state” (that has democratic ideals, does not assassinate presidents, etc.) at all.

So there are actually two layers of illusion: The “public (democratic) state,” which does not exist, the “plutocratic state,” which does exist and pretends to be democratic, and the so-called “deep state,” which is the reality.

HIDE BEHIND

June 24, 2017 at 17:44

In industrial manufacturing you find two realitys as too how items get produced, formal, managements demands for quantity, and how they think it shall be done, and thrn you have the informal which is how the laborers actually fill that demand: management, (middle), takes the credit of course.
Posters exhorting never did a lick of actual accomplishment.
What todays industrial managers know well is provide the techniques. That manipulate the labor into thinking they find ways on their own, even too firing team members thry deem unacceptable.
Government has always used a duality in order to manipulate their subjects into thinking that no matter rulers actoons they were in serfs best interest, even to giving up their lives gor the team.
When you have the financial interest as part and parcel ofgovernment, then making the populace believe their self interest is paramount while in truth it is exact opposite is the part that the self serving leadership and bureaucrats of all forms of democracythat gains the most for the formal imposition that plays wether sovialist or capitalist

Pablo Diablo

June 24, 2017 at 16:05

The poor still pay for wars. And the rich have managed to blame them for todays failing economy. “The more things change, the more they stay the same”.
WAKE UP AMERICA.

This article describes a factor (design of the US Constitution) that opens a door for a “Deep State” to be created, but it is not the modern “Deep State” itself. It only illustrates how the Constitution provides a structure to form a Deep State (shadow government).

This history does not explain critical events with geopolitical consequences — false flag operations such as 9/11 and Gladio, and numerous critical assassinations (JFK, MLK, etc.).

I recommend such books as Valentine’s “The CIA As Organized Crime” and Talbot’s “The Devil’s Chessboard” to get a better grip on an important aspect of the Deep State.

Of course these two books just touch one aspect of the Deep State. Some might refer to a “shadow government.” The scheme for world empire was not hatched by the history of the American constitution. Sorry. The plot for Empire is a creation of very powerful individuals, many if not most, un-elected and operating behind the scenes.

mike k

June 24, 2017 at 14:48

There has always been a deep state historically. It has been a possibility from the time of larger social groups, and has been instituted again and again in our long story. The modern episode is basically the same: a cabal of a few oppressing the many….

mike k

June 24, 2017 at 16:40

Th dream of an Empire ruling the entire world is a very old one.

Zim

June 24, 2017 at 11:40

Thanks for the history lesson. Much appreciated.

HIDE BEHIND

June 24, 2017 at 10:32

There is much hidden behind the term “New England”, it was but a revised form of English governIng, in contrast to the more Germantic form of self governing Repubic Form.
A form of nationhood and cultural cohesion that placed local needs over nation centralized and individual power centered.
This English system came about upon the British Isles only by force of arms over the original immigants from Spanish penninsula and germanic tribals.
Much of frontier settlements in pre till around 1830’s used those pre English ideals to govern themselves. “Government Agency stops at the village gate. And local authority stops at the individuals gate, and only by permission of the inhabitants was entry allowed.
This Germantic tradition came not from English commoners per say but from those whom central government abuses, long memories of Roan conquest and loss of cultual identity by othat centralized power, drove them into migratory existence.
American seperateness. From centralized power was earliest cause for a more communal formation of governance by Town Council. which was where the true vision of American Democratic rule was most sacred.
Of course that was a failure on their part as they were led to believe in this propaganda of a new form of self governing as being protected.
Fear of central power was not held by propertied people quite the opposite in fact, and much like old English Lords they thought that their power base lay in personal wealth as right to rule,.
Basicly today the old ideas of sovereignty of individual gave way to Sovereignty of Nation being first and foremost, and like the old serfs of England the individual became subjects of the state.
Which was the intent of the so called founders of US and its Articles of confederation.
Articles that the populace began to chafe under causing those early oligarchist to add the Bill of Rights.
So much of US civil Rights could only be held due to the individuals as a collective fighting against those abusers who used central powers against them.
Problem of lack of Liberty and Freedom is the commonors,subjects, of today do not understand differences between those terms, and have allowed the very form of oligarchy we now find ourselves ruled by.
Alexis de Tocqueville said it best; American democracy always depended upon whats in it for me in a monetary way.

Bob Van Noy

June 24, 2017 at 09:58

There are so many things to like about this essay and follow-up that I hardly know where to begin.
This new paradigm, the internet, has been accurately described, I think, as being akin to the era following “movable type”. It certainly is that. In this beautiful, rich, well written essay on American History, we are treated to an alternative that, as readers, we may sort through for our own individual truth. While compelling and valuable, the New Part is the Deep sharing we see and read by posters like mike k and Jessica K. It adds additional depth and impact that is truly extraordinary. We See how reality falsely managed, distorts lives and changes our reality. Thanks for your input. We hear from individuals all around the World so we get a sense of accuracy…. Altogether, it is an Exotic blend of our contemporary lives lived. I am more encouraged this morning than I have been in some time that We Citizens of The World will be able to seek and find a Justice that will be appropriate and new.
Thanks to all…
Robert Parry, you are a National Treasure.

mike k

June 24, 2017 at 14:41

Thank you Bob. Your comments are deeply true and much appreciated. I too feel like I am in a Socratic school here, where important questions are being examined by wise and concerned people.

Joe Tedesky

June 24, 2017 at 09:54

Dear CN Commenters, this article and these comments are like us all having a back room conversation, because none of what is written and being talked about here will ever see the light of day as a national conversation. In fact this whole discussion, by some, would no doubt be judged as it being unpatriotic to say the least. Yet, how can a nation such as the U.S. ever come in from the dark side, if this kind of conversation wasn’t had. The truth will often hurt, but lying hurts even more. The only thing lying does, is temporarily a lie will conveniently hide the scars and infections, but eventually the truth will bring us to the painful reality of our country’s actions. America needs to at least accept the hard facts of it’s manmade reality, and if this acceptance isn’t received then we as a nation will truly discover just how devastating the truth is when we no longer can escape it.

Seer

June 25, 2017 at 16:06

Joe, it’s all in the name of survival. Look around and you’ll see that nature is full of deception in order for survival. Humans ARE of nature.

It’s the struggle that we face. Having empathy and being subject to the drive for survival. (and those at the top must have, by their very “nature,” less empathy)

HIDE BEHIND

June 24, 2017 at 09:37

This authors thoughts come from an inquisitive mind of a well read , a necessary prerequisite to distinguish truths from from all the memes that have been inculated into those those who have grown to believe their incomes as a status of ducational level, f they of the merely well trained by indoctrination.

I read the rest of the dialogue I missed after Craig’s comment. Two points I would like to make:

1. Anyone who thinks Trump is making decisions on his own is fooled. Every president of USA is a puppet of what we are talking about, the “deep state”. There is collusion as well as confusion to get processes and policies in place based on the idea of US dominance. Many of these people really are crazy and drunk with power, hence their insane arming of terrorists, coup against Ukraine and blaming Russia, playing whichever country they think will aid their insane monetary game. It changes constantly, they tweak it but it’s always what they think will aid their dominance. This summer these nuts will have to decide what to do about their $20tn debt they’ve run up to continue this “great game”.

2. There were many great investigative books out after 9/11. David Ray Griffin, James Fetzer, so many others hopefully still are available. The deep state has worked against their availability. There is definite evidence of use of explosives in the destruction of the Twin Towers. The collapse of the buildings into their own “footprints” is evidence against laws of physics in the way buildings go down by impact such as the planes hitting and fire ensuing. It would not be straight down because there would be irregular opposition of falling layers. Engineers found evidence of thermate and thermite, used in professional controlled demolition, in fires burning under the buildings weeks after the downing of the two buildings. There are groups in existence which get no attention: “Architects and Engineers for 911 Truth”, “Firefighters for 911 Truth”, the “911 Truth Movement” itself. There are hundreds of points of evidence pointing to a definite inside job. I bought a lot of the books and read them, then gave them to the Democracy Center in Cambridge, MA, so others could read them. I kept one by James Fetzer, “911: The Scamming of America” because it had basically all the salient points of the independent investigators set out in the book. We will never hear the truth from MSM or the USG about 911, just as with JFK’s assassination.

Joe Tedesky

June 24, 2017 at 09:41

Jessica, Great Comment.

Gregory Herr

June 24, 2017 at 15:48

Absolutely.

mike k

June 24, 2017 at 09:05

Moderator; My recent comment is still “awaiting moderation.” What gives?

I didn’t yet read comments following Craig Holtzclaw’s comment about the Eurasia project, but have to say it is not true that the US is trying to join the China project. The US would like to scuttle it. The project is on its way and many other nations are joining, but from what I have read there is no sign of US desire to be a cooperative participant. The US simply wants to continue with its hostile, arrogant, imperialistic state behavior to continue dominance, especially set down in the PNAC documents of 1997 that outline America’s need to remain “top dog”, as people here at CN well know. And the US continues as the powerful lackey of Israel.

I see this article as basically showing how the ruling class whites have predominated over the working class from the beginning of the nation’s government framework. It would take books to tease out all of the ramifications and nuance. That could be called the Deep State, but America’s Deep State really got set in place firmly after WWII when FDR set up the New Deal. Opposition forces followed and party politics became more and more confrontational. Particularly with the machinations of the CIA and FBI, situations have gotten more and more willfully desirous to control the people. The Deep State of today has many more ways to come down on the people than the basics shown in the early days of the government’s formation.

The responses to mike K’s post about knowing he was different early on and then being labeled a “paranoid schizophrenic” showed he hit a spot of truth maybe with readers here. I had a period after return to the US from a Peace Corps stint in Africa when the Vietnam War was going on and my readjustment was difficult to say the least. I thought I was going crazy. I discovered the book by the British psychoanalyst R. D. Laing, “The Politics of Experience”, and it was a lifeline, told me I wasn’t crazy but was questioning because questioning is normal to fully develop as a human being, and that the psyche of some will be driven nearly crazy by societal and government controls when internally they recognize the insanity of these controls. He set up halfway houses in England where schizophrenics lived together and worked on creative projects instead of drugging them as is the norm today. His other books include “The Divided Self”, “The Politics of the Family”, “The Self and Others”, and more. The Deep State nowadays seems to be having an effect to keep people’s minds on a superficial level. That is why I like CN so much, it brings so many intelligent people to comment and helps develop deeper thinking.

mike k

June 24, 2017 at 09:33

Interesting comment Jessica. R, D. Laing was helpful to me also. When I was a student at U. of Chicago, a mentor of mine who was in training to become a psychoanalyst pointed me to his work. My mentor, friend realized that I was just a sensitive young intellectual who had been abused, and not one needing a “psychotic” label. That labeling is the way society often disguises it’s responsibility for creating the kind of crazy making environment that damages so many sensitive souls. Psychology as it is usually practiced tends to seek only to “readjust” one to the sick social norms that caused one’s difficulties in the first place. It’s good for me to hear from you having gone through something similar, but of course unique to you and your circumstances. Many of those we would like to awaken to the real world and it’s horrific problems, ward off our well meaning efforts, thinking to themselves “you’re crazy.” Thus they insulate themselves from the discomforts of cognitive dissonance.

If people would only deeply and sincerely ask themselves, :What is sanity? we might find a way out of the madhouse society has become. Socrates was right, the unexamined life is not worth living, and is dangerous to all living things to boot.

mike k

June 24, 2017 at 07:14

The deep dynamic of history is the interaction between those who worship power and domination over others, and those who believe in cooperation and sharing equally. Riane Eisler has elaborated on this dimension of our lives together beautifully in a series of books, beginning with The Chalice and the Blade. Highly recommended.

Antares

June 24, 2017 at 03:45

The problem with the term ‘Deep State’ is that their people are electable. So it is front state.

Secondly, as a non-American, I really don’t care whether it is a deep state or a front state. They are firing weapons at all other countries and I hold everyone in the USA responsible. The term ‘deep state’ is nothing but a distraction from what the front state is actually doing on a daily basis, namely to conquer other countries.

What really happens in the USA time and time again is that people vote for the war camps. Clinton and Trump are both part of the war camps and they are the ones who got voted for. There are also candidates outside of the war camps but they were not elected. Americans vote on war criminals and then start complaining about Russians and deep states. Why not take responsibility for what one is doing, or simple be honest about it?

Americans are nice people, always ready to help someone, but also to engage in war. Just tell them that someone is being attacked by a merciless monster. It is the perfect trap.

Enough said, if an article starts with ‘deep state’ it is just pure propaganda. If it is a lengthy article than it is big propaganda. Or ‘hugh’ as Trump would say.

mike k

June 24, 2017 at 07:04

The deep state has existed throughout humankind’s long history. It refers to the powerful individuals and their combinations that exert great control over what society becomes and does. The term ‘deep’ refers to these players being hidden from the awareness of the mass of people. The deep state players have always been at great pains to hide their role and real intentions from those they rule over. All sorts of myths and lies are used for this purpose. When a person awakes to the existence and real intentions of these manipulators, then the deep state is obvious, and not deep or unknown anymore. Real societal revolution depends on a large segment of the population waking up to how they have been deceived and victimized. How to engender this awakening is the key to our survival on Earth, because the power-corrupted elites become insane, and threaten the existence of all of us in their unlimited addiction to more and more power.

Sam F

June 24, 2017 at 08:14

The US is a diseased former democracy running wild. Those with the knowledge, experience, and courage to face the truth are a minority. We try to understand the problem but did not cause it and do not yet control it. You are welcome to make suggestions, and to help apply the external pressures that will be part of the solution.

Brad Owen

June 24, 2017 at 10:07

Look Antares, this is not an American problem, this is a problem,for the people of all nations in the world. The problem didn’t originate with us. Indeed,,we’ve been plagued by the counter-attacks of that oligarchy we offended in 1776, and they have been after the entire world since the Portugese and Spanish have been on the march for world Empire in the name of the Church( the Constantine model of empire), and since the French have been on the march for global empire(the Napoleonic model), and ESPECIALLY since the Anglo-Dutch combined East India Trading Companies, and affiliated Trading Companies have been on the march for global empire (the Venetian model for empire and most successful model). We, in our Patriot Cause, have tried to stop this take-over of the World, NOT without American Tory resistance to the Patriot Cause, who’ve ALWAYS embraced the Empire of our British Brethren (now a covert operation run out of City-of -London & Wall Street banking houses for the Crown). We’ve been hijacked in the post-war forties by the Synarchist Movement for Empire (SME). Go to Executive Intelligence Review. Go to their search box. Type in it “Synarchists against America” and “Return of the Monarchs” and read about where the stink of empire REALLY originates, and finally, get off your high horse, Antares. It is because England, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Gremany, Austria, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, France, and many other European nations still tolerate the existence of Crowns and royal Dynastic families that this problem exists. You think they are just sitting around on the throne picking their noses? Wake the hell up Anteres, we American Patriots cannot solve your effing Royalist problem on our own, and our American Tories hold even more power than what is commanded by the American Patriots. 99% of the Americans don’t even know what I’m talking about, and you sure as hell aren’t helping the problem, since if all of America was destroyed , the ROOT of the problem, those damn Dynastic families, still exist in YOUR back yard, and the ONLY hope for the World is for the 99%ers of USA, Russia, and China, combine forces to stop the plots and machinations the the Synarchist Internationale. China has come up with a good strategy (the BRI, at the suggestion of the LaRouche organization) to accomplish this. Destroying America only insures that Russia and China, the ONLY other two revolutionary great powers left in the world, will fail in this mission. Well played, Antares, you couldn’t have done any better than if you were a paid agent of the Synarchist Internationale.

Antares

June 25, 2017 at 04:33

Thanks for the reactions but unfortunately you missed the main point.

Americans still can’t see their own country for what it is. All wars originate from the USA as well as gmo, nuclear energy, bolshewism, world war 1&2 (WO1 started local), Israel, NATO, coups, ISIS, Africom, Eucom and Asiacom. Still pointing at ‘factors’ that I would have missed and blaming this messager. Fukushima was designed by GE, built against the will of the Japanese people and finally exploded. Even if we are able to fend off your war ships we still have a nuclear disaster on our beach. If we survive your bullets we get cancer from DU. That is how diabolical you have become, as a nation. It wasn’t you, I believe that. Nevertheless, your country has a law that stipulates when it should attack my country militarily. Try to figure out in what country I live with that information. You can’t. (Hint: a western NATO country) What country is not under American threat?

Still crying about an invisible deep state. No, it’s not you. But what is deep state if we all know their names and their numbers? We know who were behind 9/11. You all know the names: Rumsfeld, Perle and so on. We know who fired at Syria. That was Trump. He is not unknown to you. His son-in-law is known by you. The Clintons are known by the public (CIA-trafficking, drugs, murder, war, theft, espionage). Don’t pretend that there is a hidden deep state while everything is visible for everyone. Don’t blame Israel when you have McCain and Graham. That is really your country and not that of somebody else. It has never been different. War and expansion are part and parcel for the United States.

You can’t isolate yourself from your war (and nuclear/pharma/banking) industry and say: “Hey, this is not my America!” This is how the US does its businesses. It is cultural. Without this culture you have no cheap gas. That is where it really hurts.

Sorry for my rant but it is the plain truth.

Gregory Herr

June 25, 2017 at 05:43

My guess is you are from the Netherlands.

Seer

June 25, 2017 at 12:31

Yup, totally on the mark. However, while these facts are their own data points in history, they are not unique in human history (perhaps that’s what Brad is trying to say?). But, again, here’s the point of concern (which you raise): how come that despite seeing/hearing/knowing these things are they allowed to continue? I’d have to say that the evolution of empires is that they become totalitarian, embedding the mechanisms to control/punish, to act as a constant source of terror such that individuals (who are increasingly kept from forming groups) do not challenge the overlords.

I always laugh at the stupidity of the anti-Communist folks, the ones that had claimed the need to continue spilling blood in southeast Asia and continue to preach the evils of communism. Why do they so hate Communism? Because it’s a horrible system. So, yes, I get that. BUT… if a system is so bad then how can it take over? Nature doesn’t really allow “bad systems.” Paranoia might be more effective at killing than a bad system…

Like a wild fire, it’s pretty much a case of letting it run its course. And perhaps the ultra-religious and their claim of “it’s God’s will” are closest to being accurate. (empires rise and fall; it’s the mathematical function of a parabola- which everything seems to absolutely follow.

In case anyone is thinking it’s just a management or an ideological deficiency, hinting that things could really be different, I strongly suggest reading Sir John Glubb’s “The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival”. (it’s bootlegged out on the Internet) NOTE: Glubb failed to realize that the underlying mechanism setting all empires up for eventual collapse is the very thing that made them empires- growth (again, it’s the parabolic function in operation). Perpetual growth on a finite planet is NOT possible, therefore, no empire/group could ever expand/grow without limit. Today’s version of empire is globalism; it has allowed increased (read “exponential”) growth, but it too is nearing its growth capacity. As the pressures from decreasing growth set in there becomes increased tension within the system; people will look to lay blame on just about anyone or anything (yet they will NEVER question growth as being the “disease” that is killing things).

All wars are about resources. Stocking supply lines is always the thing that makes or breaks the ability to press on with war.

Wow. Jada that was extremely insightful and enlightening in a very disturbing light. I now see how I was brainwashed by the deep state. Can see it echoed in statements by people such as Scalia, and more. Puts things in a clear view.

Cal

June 23, 2017 at 22:41

I think the ‘Founders are taking a bit too much of a ‘hit’ …..that and the ‘demonizing’ of America and the evil white men Founders has been going on now for several years in several quarters.
Unfortunately many people arent informed/educated/curious enough to able to figure out and follow the bread crumb trail to the Deep State interest in demonizing America and all thing American. Find the hundreds of examples for yourself.

A French general said it best—-‘if you can convince the people of a nation that their history is one of only evil deeds and because of that they are worthless and undeserving and have no right to defend themselves because of their history , then you have defeated them without firing a shot and you own them.’

This is going to go right over the heads of most people and that is why they have made the US and themselves so easy to own by special interest —-even as they rant and whine about it how evil and bad ‘the country’ and we all are.
They are unknowingly serving those special interest .

Wake the hell up people.

backwardsevolution

June 24, 2017 at 03:26

Cal – and if you can convince a nation’s people that they are exceptional, then you can do almost anything to them, or against others on their behalf.

I would think your quote is more appropriate to Germany of today. Steeped in guilt, the citizens do not fight back.

Joe Average

June 24, 2017 at 10:56

backwardsevolution

The best course for Germany is to stay away from patriotism and nationalism (personally I don’t see many differences of both concepts). As to the “German nature” it’s sad to say that it’s different than the French. Whilst the French don’t like to get pushed around by those in power, German citizens are more in favor of “law and order”. The only exception may have been during the period of the Weimar Republic when the left and right clashed. Whenever the French decide to boycott some company, product or products from a certain country they experience positive feedback of their fellow countrymen. Germany is different in that aspect. Everyone is purely concerned about the own well being. Maybe this will change in the future, but presently people are still too self-centered.

Maybe the 30 Million anniversary of the US had been the reason for the USHMM to publish “shocking” new findings about German history in 2013 (they seem to have counted differently). I’m not too familiar with military history, but as far as I know prior to WW II civilians hadn’t been targeted on such a large scale – except by European countries in African colonies. As far as I know US warfare had been conducted differently. The are for example the deliberate firebombings of Tokyo, Dresden and Hamburg, the chemical warfare in Vietnam (Agent Orange), the poisoning of people in former Yugoslavia, Iraq and Iran with depleted Uranium ammunition. Whilst writing about Chemical warfare: Did anyone know about the SS John Harvey?

Germany had been demonized before and after WW II. In my opinion the one-sided demonetization after WW I had been wrong. With regard to WW II it’s justified to point out the atrocities that had been committed. Teaching this part of history doesn’t necessarily imply that people should feel guilty. In my opinion it had been worth teaching this part of history, so that people can learn from it and do their best to avoid making the same mistakes again. The “Muslim scare” that has infested Europe (including Germany) shows that people are still prone to falling into the same trap over and over again.

Another aspect that doesn’t get reported is the collusion with the US (or certain groups in the US) and Nazi Germany. Peace activist David Swanson recently published an article about the US inspiration for the Nuremberg Laws (http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2017/04/u-s-race-laws-inspired-nazis.html). The inspirations for German eugenics seem to trace back to Galton (UK) and the US. Especially the Rockefeller Foundation helped to spread this mindset. One of the most prominent people who got inspired by those ideas had been Mengele (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_Foundation). John Jay McCloy – once US high commissioner of Germany and through marriage related to the first Chancellor Konrad Adenauer – played some dubious role in delaying the rescue of the inmates of Auschwitz. (By the way: Mr. McCloy had held high positions banking during his career.)

Sam F

June 24, 2017 at 10:37

You are both right. There is no proper goal served in claims that the US is inherently good or bad. It is a particular history, a product of very particular circumstances and human nature. That does not deny the great historical wrongs, or the longstanding potential to do much good. We reform best when we look at details of recent wrongdoing, without the remote historical claims of good or bad.

Blah blah blah blah, all those words in service of obfuscation of the reality that IS the transnational corporate deep state that owns and runs our government – along with most others in the world. If you want to focus on some of the warnings of the founding fathers about the corporate vampire squid that has consumed their creation, there are no better words than these from Thomas Jefferson: “If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered…. I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies…. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”

But really, even though the beast now known as the deep state had its origins even before the American revolution, it has only come to full fruition in the past century, especially the past 20 years or so. There are several major milestones along the way, including the passage of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, the creation of the Council on Foreign Affairs soon after that, the advent of electronic media which was immediately harnessed by the oligarchic elites as a tool of propaganda, and numerous other social theories, psychological insights, and technological and developments, and both non governmental and governmental organizations that have been created or pressed into service to create the modern international corporate police state.

Excellent comment Stuart ! The creation of the Federal Reserve by the ruling families changed our country forever and yet is rarely discussed.

Giorgio

June 23, 2017 at 22:08

The article is well researched but it doesn’t want show (hidden) the fundamental roll
of the Freemasons in that period of history, and this is a major flaw.

Danny Weil

June 23, 2017 at 18:54

One can even go back to Rome for thye deep state killed Caesar.

Wherever there is class struggle you will find a deep state. This is nothing new.

The use of the term now is due to the use in Turkey some time ago. and although this article is a good history lesson, ala Zinn, the deep state today is quite different. Made up of careerists, not solely the oligarchy, the banks and the military the deep state today is closer to nuclear annihilation than America ever was during the time mentioned in this article.

And the global reaches of the deep state today are part and parcel of imperialism that yes, has been around since the Monroe Doctrine, but now its tentacles are far reaching with 950 military bases camped out all over the world.

So, I would conclude that the deep state today is far greater in both scope and power than at any time in history and poses a threat of the termination of life as it exists on earth.

Cal

June 23, 2017 at 22:42

”So, I would conclude that the deep state today is far greater in both scope and power than at any time in history and poses a threat of the termination of life as it exists on earth.”>>>>

Yep.

Craig Holtzclaw

June 23, 2017 at 17:40

This is politically correct revisionist garbage. There is an open British Imperial/CIA Coup going on right now, by the same Bastards who killed JFK, and did 9-11, and all You are doing is disarming people with this contrived Pessimism! The US is threatening to join a New Just Economic Development Order, now led by China and the Belt and Road Initiative Alliance. This was the INTENDED ANTI IMPERIAL GOAL OF OUR FOUNDERS! And whose side are you and all your self righteous populism on?? The British Empire! Not the People.

Calm down, Craig. You can believe anything you want about “OUR FOUNDERS”.
I’m citing History. Do you understand? Read the book SLAVE NATION, or at least
GOOGLE IT. YOU MIGHT LEARN SOMETHING. Which side am I on? I’m on the side of the
Working Class, whose lives have been ravaged, from the time of our Slave-Owning
“FOUNDING FATHERS” into our 21st century Neo-Liberal Corporate Capitalist HORROR SHOW.

Cal

June 23, 2017 at 22:51

SLAVE NATION is hardly a whole history of the US.

And not to ‘excuse’ US slavery but slavery has been around since time began so the Founders didn’t invent it. The Africans themselves had African slaves..

. 3000 BC Slavery arrives as part of the package of civlization, along with armies, public works and social hierarchies .
c. 1720 BC – The Code of Hammurabi is the first surviving document to record the law relating to slaves.

Brad Owen

June 24, 2017 at 08:10

This is just the USA being set up by the Synarchist International, to take the fall for THEIR machinations, after using us as their cannon fodder “Roman Legions” to build THEIR global Empire at OUR ( we the people of the USA) expense. Same with Israel and KSA. We and they are just chess pieces on the Synarchist global chessboard. They are trying to maneuver us, Russia, and China into destroying one another because we three great powers, together only, command sufficient force to stop the Synarchist Internationale plots and schemes. But the World is being whipped into a state of high dudgeon and furious frenzy to destroy USA for our “crimes”, as if this is entirely a US-sponsored plan to create an American Empire, which it is not. It has its roots in Europe and the British Isles, and, like British press gangs grabbing Americans off their ships to serve in the British Navy, we have been hi-jacked in the post-war forties, by the Synarchists, to do service for their global Empire. But people love to marinate in their self-righteous fury and once again are steered into the wrong direction seeking revenge for crimes committed by an entity that is NOT the USA, NOR any other nation. It is a ruling class, rooted in European and British history, now gone global and aimed against ALL nations. I wish people would wake the eff up to who the REAL criminals are, but they love to waste their time and energy throwing stones at Americans, Jews, Saudis, ANYONE but the REAL criminals.

Why not more recent examples of the deep state overthrowing regimes, and assassinating troublemakers who stood in its way?

Sean Ahern

June 23, 2017 at 16:31

I think a “deep history” of the War of Independence and Constitutional Convention must follow the strangest and most consistent thread in US history – As Samuel Johnson expressed it in 1775 “How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?”

The following may be of interest:
Slave Nation – How Slavery United the Colonies and Sparked the American Revolution, by Alfred and Ruth Blumrosen

Sean, the Southern states were mainly attracted to Revolution because the British Crown was looking
to at least limit Slavery, and maybe even abolish it.

JWalters

June 23, 2017 at 21:16

At the same time, the British textile magnates depended on the Southern cotton crop. It was much less costly than cotton all the way from India.

backwardsevolution

June 23, 2017 at 18:47

Sean Ahern – they did start out trying to enslave the Native Indians, but they died from disease. Then they moved on to the poor whites they stole off the streets of England, the English convicts, but they too died of Malaria and Yellow Fever. It was only then they moved on to the blacks who unfortunately (or fortunately) did survive these diseases, were basically immune to them.

So it wasn’t that they hated the blacks; it’s just that the blacks survived when the rest didn’t.

Brad Owen

June 24, 2017 at 07:37

Very good points, backwards. Black, white, Indians (American or Hindu, take your pick), the British Empire (actually the Anglo-Dutch East India Trading Companies Empire, along with other affiliated Trading Companies) and its 1%er oligarchic managers didn’t care WHO they put-in-harness to pull their plow. They found the hardiest ones to do the job. The move to abolish slavery was a convenient PR ploy, after the British Empire discovered the extremely lucrative opium trade, abandoning the slave trade to Portugese and Spanish Empires, and “China Clipper” types of Americans (Essex County Junto Tories, who also got a piece of the opium action in cooperation with the Brits).

Seer

June 25, 2017 at 12:02

The natives KNEW the land and could run away and survive because they were going back “home.” Those imported on slave ships couldn’t really do the same.

Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon

The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of of American Capitalism by Edward E. Baptist

Bill

June 23, 2017 at 16:07

Today’s deep state is Brennan who regularly appears on the Sunday pundit shows. He has no humility whatsoever and he’s openly attacking the President. He’s got the secrets and the f*cker isn’t even part of the government any more.

mike k

June 23, 2017 at 14:45

As Lao Tzu said long ago, when laws proliferate the State declines. The stability of the State depends on the moral fiber and clear thinking of it’s citizens; laws and political arrangements can never compensate for deficiencies in this basic foundation. Unfortunately a degenerated population is exactly what we are dealing with. The means to remedy this situation are presently widely held in contempt. Degenerate ages are like that. Those who refuse the appropriate medicine for their condition will continue to worsen, and eventually die.

The article you’re linking to is written by Andre Vltchek. His reports are worth reading – as well as those of many others. On some occasions he goes a bit too far – when he attacks all Westerners (be it the ones not aware of what’s going on or those who are aware, but don’t have the power to change the situation). Nevertheless Mr. Vltchek’s articles provide insights you’re rarely reading about.

A few days ago I had read an excellent comment on consortium news. I’ll quote the most important lines of that input:

“… That this stems from a fear from the Royals, who allied themselves with the Nazis to fight the communists. I believe this is the central story of the past century, yet perhaps it is still a topic that is too sensitive to discuss and does not receive nearly the coverage it deserves. I would love to more of your ideas on this subject.”

In my opinion the writer of that comment is onto something. For some time now I think that the creation of the Soviet Union had been one the biggest blowback in history. In order to focus on the Western front Germany needed to stop fighting in the east, so it’s military came up with the idea of sending Lenin back to Russia. Maybe US / UK bankers also saw some advantage in financing Lenin. Probably they thought that they could loot Russian resources after a failed coup. The Western system never really was in favor of ordinary citizens (France and Germany had to offer some social programs – even before the successful Russian revolution – to their citizens in order to keep them from revolting), especially in the US. Does anyone remember the Pinkertons? They infiltrated labor movements and clashed with striking workers (Homestead Strike). Fast forward to the Nazi reign in Germany. The Nationalsocialists had support of many US corporations (Standard Oil, IBM, Ford, DuPont – read Antony C. Sutton). Of course large German corporations supported the party as well. Probably they intended to destroy the opposing political concept in order to go on as they had done for quite some time. (At the beginning of the industrial revolution royals got replaced by industrialists, but the exploitation of ordinary folks continued in a different way.) Perhaps they hoped that Hitler may be able to destroy the Soviet Union, so that they could take over the resources after the job had been done. At this point I’ll go fast forward. After the collapse of the competing economic system there’s no need anymore to pretend to be pro worker. That’s when union busting started to take off on a larger scale. By the way: if you look “behind” large industries you’ll always end up with a bank in the background. Even large industries need to use bank credits (bridging credit) from time to time. The western financial system is like a casino: the bank always wins.
At this point I would like to get to the struggle between ordinary folks and finance. This struggle goes far beyond the beginnings of communism or The Pinkertons. The most prominent story is the one about a Person who is called prophet in Islam and Messiah in Christianity. I’ll go the easy way and paste the reply that I had prepared to the comment quoted above, so excuse me if there some sentences may appear twice in this comment (written above and below in the pasted text):

If people would start looking closer at history, they would realize that this struggle had been going on for a long time. It’s not just a struggle of the past century. It dates back far longer and can best be described as haves against have-nots. In about six months people will celebrate the birthday of one of the most prominent persons who had been an outspoken critic of the system. This guy had been born into a family of low status (carpenter) at the time. As an adult he didn’t just challenge the merchants and the money changers in the Temple. He also challenged their interpretation of the Old Testament, when he stood up for a woman who had been fund guilty of adultery and should be stoned to death. Additionally he dared to sit together with some of the most despised people of those times – tax collectors. When giving his lectures he also gave away meals for free. Aside from being generous, he also was quite modest. When his popularity grew and more and more people wanted to get to know him, he decided to use a donkey to ride into the big city, instead of riding on a horse. With his teachings he challenged the establishment. When he got too dangerous for those in power, they plotted against him and got him arrested – betrayed by one of his closest followers and denied by another. History could’ve taken another course if people would’ve paid more attention. They were given the chance to free him from prison, but the general public decided to free some violent thug instead. The hero of this whole story was first mocked and finally executed.

Fast forward nearly 2000 years: Would anyone listen to critics of our present (monetary) system? Would anyone question the existing laws and the resulting sentences delivered by courts? (Also remember the events after 9/11. People wanted bloody revenge for what had happened and they got it.) Many people admire the wealthy and the strong. Would people listen to someone who pulls up to an event in a new small car (donkey), instead of a large and expensive limousine (horse)?

For Christians He is their savior and for Muslims he’s an important Prophet.

Maybe I’ll sit down in the future and try to elaborate more on this topic. For now I hope the text above will do.

franck-y

June 23, 2017 at 13:13

Merci beaucoup. Your text help me a lot. I make a connection with the french revolution and the “déclaration des droits de l’homme” and the private propriety. Thank you very much.

Wow. Sure isn’t what I was taught back in the 1930’s. Everybody in America needs a second education – one that tells the truth. Problem is nobody wants to study anything now. Even to read a book of any kind is too much for most of us. I guess that’s why a guy like me who has read literally thousands of books feels like a stranger in a strange land. People started telling me I was crazy from an early age. It worked – I bought it, and felt bad about myself for many early years, but as time went on I began to realize it was they who were crazy, not me. Then they said I was a paranoid schizophrenic, whatever the hell that was. Turns out they were totally wrong about that too. The root of many of my personal problems was my tremendous curiosity, but it developed that it was also my salvation.

Well, enough about me, our world is dying from lies and dishonesty being palmed off as truth. How to wake people up who prefer to sleep??

Mike K, HOW OLD ARE YOU???!!!! 90-something, I would guess. What a great comment you’ve written here.
Be well, and I wish you All the Best.

Danny Weil

June 23, 2017 at 19:04

Yes, the deficit or curiosity or the lack of a theoretical imagination has much to do with why people think as they do. Angela Davis once said it is not enough to change conditions, we must change minds. I think she was right, and the dialectic is inescapable.

Your frustration is one that many who grew up entirely with a Guttenburg press feel. But it is worse: the book, The Shallows: What the internet is doing to our brains, by Nicholas Carr is a good read as to the affects of the internet on thinking.

Blaise Pascal the great French philosopher once said: “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

The world is too noisy, to busy with false information, misinformation, bombardment of images — the Society of the Spectacle and it does indeed take its toll.

The article has to be long enough to give a good historical perspective. Good article, thank you, certainly shows how people were not hoodwinked in those times as they are today by the political psychobabble of media.

sierra7

June 23, 2017 at 12:22

Great article! So much more than what the average American knows or cares to know…..I posted it on my Facebook page………
That “American ignorance” of what the lengthy articles describes will eventually be the US’s downfall.

Veronica Shelford

June 23, 2017 at 11:58

Fabulous article – should be studied and meditated on by everyone, the world over, to understand how power structures operate. Thank you!

Surprised this Gentleman is not in a permanent coma or worse, still alive to write provocative essays! The best analyses ever! Perhaps he enjoys the same ‘protection’ as Noam Chomsky? Mercy on the deep state if harm comes to Chomsky. It is he and a few other honorable men – like the two referred to – that make the world community not to drop the USA from their agenda.
/HGB

I ended my adoration of Chomsky when he issued his “Lesser-Evil” Manifesto, urging voters to vote for Hillaroid Clinton. How could he endorse that War-Criminal Woman ??????!!!!!!!!

Gregory Herr

June 24, 2017 at 18:05

The Clinton as lesser evil thing gets to me too. Chomsky’s insistence that JFK would not have deescalated the Vietnam conflict is off putting as well.
And thanks for understanding the historical and ongoing plight of workers.

NormanB

June 24, 2017 at 13:30

I was a former admirer of Chomsky until his pathetic stance on 911. Now I am convinced he is a CIA mole.

Excellent article, though I disagree with the conclusion. The current Deep State isa distillation of that presented, ad for that reason, along with factors relating to globalization, is even more dangerous to the common welfare; … everywhere.

Guillermo Calvo Mahé is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia. Until recently he chaired the Political Science, Government and International Relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. He has academic degrees in political science, law, international legal studies and translation studies and can be contacted at wacalvo3@autonoma.edu.co. Much of his writing is available through his blog at http://www.guillermocalvo.com.

Michael Allport

June 23, 2017 at 11:35

Succinct, cogent analysis.

Andrew Dabrowski

June 23, 2017 at 11:22

Why would a Deep State need to remove Trump? He’s giving them everything they want.

Gus Stone

June 23, 2017 at 13:02

Trump is by definition an outsider, he’s not and never has been a member of the Counsel on Foreign Relations, i.e., an Eastern Establishment front that supplies puppets of different sizes to a “democratic” or “republican” administration. They are the globalists who don’t give two shits about the average American of their welfare, e.g., the TPP pushed by Obama – a treacherous deal negotiated in secret. Trump is not in that club, he’s small potatoes by comparison to the criminals in the Deep State. This article here is deficient and misses the mark, why? bc the Deep State in question, the specific threat to all of us, came into existence after WWII. There are very specific characteristics to it that go beyond a few wealthy land owners as is simplistically suggested here.

Cal

June 23, 2017 at 16:22

Also true.
In the times Thacker writes of the elite vr others was a fight between Americans interest vr the American landholding/elite interest …
NOW its a whole different game, with foreign and global interest vr Americans.

Cal, it’s not a different game AT ALL. It’s not about “foreign interests” or “global interests”.
It’s about the OWNERS OF AMERICA subjugating the Slaves that are called “Workers”
and “Citizens”. It has always been thus, and it will continue to be.

Cal

June 23, 2017 at 21:30

You are wrong, sorry to say.

Trump just appointed the US lobbyist for Saudi to a position. That lobbyist has been paid 430K since January to push Saudi interest.
This is a prime example, as if we need one more, of what I said—-”foreign and global interest vr American’s interest.

Federal Politics
Trump appointee is a Saudi government lobbyist
Richard Hohlt earning six figures from kingdom bent on influencing Trump

Great point and thank you Orwell. These others are so wrapped up in their intellectualism

backwardsevolution

June 24, 2017 at 03:16

orwell – “It has always been thus, and it will continue to be.” Exactly right.

Leslie F

June 23, 2017 at 19:32

But his fondness for Israel and Saudi Arabia, which predates is rise to the presidency, before the deep state assault began, dovetails nicely with their priorities. He seems to have given up trying to improve relations with Russia. Or he is stupid enough to think he can do it while bombing Russian allies Iran and Syria. Maybe this new hawkishness in Syria is the result of deep state harrassment but it could just as easily be due to the influence of Israel and Saudi Arabia. Said influence always posed a challenge to any raproachment with Russia though I’m not sure he realizes that.

As far as the trade deals go, their are reports that he is considering deals with individual countries that are just as bad as TPP.

So all that’s left is that they just don’t like him, but I don’t think that would be enough for them to try to oust him. This whole Russia-gate thing started for that purpose, but it really didn’t work and it’s still not working. Meanwhile there are other valid reasons for the people, not the deep state, to want him gone so I don’t buy that the push for impeachment is solely at the behest of the deep state. He is an absolute horror on the domestic front and dripping with conflict of interest. That is enough.

Danny Weil

June 23, 2017 at 18:58

He is giving them more. He is giving them cover for their policies, focusing everything on Trump at the expense of everything else. Trump is useful, as are most presidents, for selling policy but the problem is Trump doesn’t sell well. the polls show him with less support than Nixon at his worst. If he becomes unable to ‘sell’ corporate, imperialist capitalism he will be 86’d.

Gregory Herr

June 24, 2017 at 17:47

They like dog and pony shows to distract attention from real issues, to show themselves what they can do when they want to, and for their sheer entertainment value. I’m only half-joking.

Vera

June 23, 2017 at 11:08

The article is much too long.

Sam F

June 23, 2017 at 13:24

The article is a good historical perspective on economic oligarchy.

But it does a disservice in pretending that the Constitutional Convention was a conspiracy of oligarchy, when it was one of the most liberal and generous conventions to form a government in history. It did not abolish oligarchy, and it did protect landed interests, but certainly did not in any way establish oligarchy.

The Constitution is not less democratic than the prior Articles of Confederation. It simply provides more federal power, primarily for defense. It added the Bill of Rights to protect citizens against abuses by citizens and government, previously guaranteed only by states. None of the improvements advance the interests of oligarchy, except some effects of the taxation power. Bicameral legislatures were intended to stabilize democracy by reconsideration by a more experienced group, and to entice smaller states, not to establish an oligarchy.

While the rich have always been influential, economic oligarchy did not become a threat to democratic institutions until after the Civil War with the growth of economic concentrations, which in 1787 amounted to no more than plantations and small ships. The threat was not met because its erosions were very slow, the poor had little education or time to observe and reflect on subtleties, and the growing middle class largely ignored the growing problems of unregulated business until the 1890s.

The article also confuses this ascendant power of oligarchy over democratic institutions, with the establishment of secret agencies controlling foreign policy. While these are now entwined, it was WWII that provided secret agencies that grew and conducted foreign policy without public debate or control.

The Constitution does have many defects due to changes since 1787. It needs amendments to restrict funding of elections and mass media to limited individual contributions; to provide checks and balances within the branches because they have unequal powers; to prohibit most secret agency operations; to prohibit treaties allowing aggressive foreign wars; and to prohibit the executive from conducting foreign wars. Congress itself needs an institution of expert policy debate to permit all views to be heard and challenged, to produce debate summaries available to the public. The judiciary is thoroughly corrupt and must be redesigned. But none of these defects were introduced into the Constitution to establish oligarchy. Circumstances have changed, and the developing oligarchy has prevented updating the Constitution.

Attacks on the preliminary founding documents of the nation, and upon the motives of its founders, injure the ability of the people to restore democracy. We need a foundation upon which the people can see that democracy has been damaged by specific defects and processes, so that they can understand the specific corrections needed.

Cal

June 23, 2017 at 13:41

Agree in whole.

Sam F

June 23, 2017 at 13:50

Other defects of the Constitution, such as the three-fifths clause, failure to abolish slavery, etc, were necessary to gain acceptance by diverse states, while indirect presidential election was a later controversy. Democracy is a fairly messy process, often requiring unpleasant compromises, and its institutions must always be updated as times change.

Blackburn J.

June 27, 2017 at 13:27

I disagree. Democracy need not be a messy process and if it cannot properly represent the true will of the majority of the masses then it is no democracy but plutocracy in the guise of ‘democracy’ and the hope of ‘updating’ a plutocracy to democracy is but a forlorn hope.

Brad Owen

June 23, 2017 at 14:20

Agree Sam F. The kind of oligarchy talked about in this article, FAR predates these modest reforms to it, in Constitutional Convention, by MANY centuries, and Loyalist/Royalist oligarchs were constantly trying to side-step and subvert even these modest reforms. The Founders basically feared pure democracy as mob rule leading to tyranny precisely because their political experience and study of history showed that the skilled tyrant knew how to incite the masses to his ends, for his purposes (a solid education in the Liberal Arts and Sciences and Humanities to remove ignorance being the antidote to seduction by a would-be tyrant; something not typically available to the yeoman sowing, tending, harvesting, otherwise totally engaged in the practical arts and crafts of survival). Basically, these founders were just capable men, same as the priviledged oligarchy back in the old country (perhaps even more talented), but didn’t have primogeniture’s permission to exercise their talents, and acquire property as a consequence of their talents.

Brad Owen

June 23, 2017 at 14:28

The article is basically just a hit-piece in service to the modern day Deep State, trying to induce the meme :” the more things change, the more they stay the same; resistance is futile, it’s in your DNA, so just give in to the Natural Order of things, and go tend your garden, leaving power and reign to those born to the task.” They may not actually be wrong in this view. It was after all, presented as an experiment in government of, by, for, the people. The results of the experiment aren’t encouraging.

Skip Scott

June 23, 2017 at 15:44

Brad-

I think you’re on to something. I read Zinn’s “A Peoples History of the United States” years ago, and I think most of this article is a sort of recap. Just acknowledging the past does not help us with the present. As for leaving power and reign to those born to the task, I wouldn’t have near as much of a problem with it if they weren’t about to get us all killed. I have friends in rural Arizona that live under the radar- grow and hunt food, trade labor for one another’s projects, avoid debt, etc. And, all in all, we have it pretty good. But one mushroom cloud would really spoil our fun.

Cal

June 23, 2017 at 16:16

That is part of it too.

Brad Owen

June 24, 2017 at 06:22

I like your choice of approach to solving the problem, Skip Scott. Those who survive catastrophe will be people like you. By “those born to the task” I meant the kings and queens and their royal court of noblemen and noblewomen, loyal subjects to the Crown who were rewarded for their loyalty and talents and service to the Crown. I wonder if they would have steered the modern world to the same impasse we are at now. The ones in charge now, are the very ones who rebelled against that “natural order”, starting off in bloodshed that just kept getting bloodier with each recurring version of revolution (meaning the French and Russian revolutions, Chinese revolution). Our revolution may be responsible for casting the Crown into a dark and vengeful psychological space filled with Synarchist plots and scheming to destroy the destroyers of the Crown system. Would the Czar and the Crown of London be squaring off with each other with nukes, like the children of the revolutions are doing? Don’t know; it’s the road not taken.

Sam F., you give yourself away when you use the word” Liberal”, which, in case you haven’t heard,
is now regarded by many throughout the world as an obscene word that describes a mindset that has
made it easier for Fascism to bloom, with the classic example being Nazi Germany.
I agree with the author of this insightful article. As he mentioned, the Bill of Rights was written
AFTER the original Constitution, because more enlightened citizens demanded it.
The “founding Fathers” were OWNERS, and they concocted a document to protect their ill-gotten gains.
They were predators, with the detestable Alexander Hamilton leading the way in the ravaging of the
lives of the vast majority of citizens. The Bushes and Obamas and Clintons and Donalds of the
“Exceptional” Nation have followed in their Oligarchic, yes Oligarchic path.

Sam F

June 23, 2017 at 19:00

I share your anger at oligarchy. Yes, “neoliberal” and “liberal interventionist” have recently come to describe the illiberal warmongers looking for an acceptable excuse. But until recently it has in itself referred to giving freedom, with equitable provisions for the unfortunate. I use the modified terms for the newer meanings, to avoid losing a principal political distinction.

Yes, the Bill of rights was added somewhat later, at the insistence of those who most strongly saw the need. And yes, Hamilton was an aristocrat, despite his very worthwhile contributions, visible in the Federalist Papers. But the presence of the usual aristocratic faction did not prevent the US from establishing a fundamentally new and liberal Constitution, with all it limitations, and despite the long continuance of unjust institutions such as slavery in the south, and the long battles to gain those rights in fact, which are again being lost.

And yes, we can see the origins of oligarchy in attitudes brought from England, and in human nature. That does not mean that a major step forward was not taken in 1787; but certainly very major reforms are long past due.

valeriojunio

June 24, 2017 at 05:26

Nazi Germany was, for people, a great blessing, from famine of 1932 Weimar republic, Germany bring ALL THE PEOPLE, Towards a very comfortable life for all citizens. Which we haven’t in europe and in america.
if you read first chapter of “mmein kampf” you can see what was german (and european) situation, governors/Rulers who steal, hungry people which die of starvation, no job for anyone.
In only 3/4 years Germany growth was enormous, EVER SEEN !!!
in America we see 10/15 families which wants to own everything.
People at the limit of starvation another time.
deep state and the same families wants a new form of fascism, worse , much more worse than Mussolini Fascism or Hitler’s nazism.
And if communism not resolve nothing, we know very well, and if democracy is only a way to own the world, we don’t want democracy, we don’t want nor trumpete, nor hitlary, nor bushs, they are the worst of the worst.

valeriojunio

June 24, 2017 at 05:34

our “democracy” is a great example of fraud the people, wherever we see same situations, people do not rule nothing. we see ever same fraud, media decide who is the puppet of the moment, but deep state (not only in america) rule the world.
Everyone try to defend himself from these criminal (from people to sovereing countries), always suffer a bad end.

excuse for my little english

Sam F

June 24, 2017 at 08:28

The advantages you note in Germany were not caused by Naziism itself. Germany had a socialist government 1922-1933 which struggled with a recession more severe than the US Great Depression, because they had war reparations etc. from WWI. After 1933, both the US and Germany attempted to exit the depression using strong government economic policy, and both recovered even more in the early WWII period due to war production, although they could have been producing something more useful than weapons, with the same advantages of forced demand for their products. So the policies under Hitler were no more effective than those under FDR.

Weapons do not produce gains for people. We would all have done better producing infrastructure, homes, and food for the poor, rather than producing weapons to destroy people, cities, and livelihoods. That is James’ (and Pres Carter’s) “moral equivalent of war” and it has economic benefits as well.

Lin Cleveland

June 24, 2017 at 10:43

thank you so much, orwell, for this post from which i copied,

“I agree with the author of this insightful article. As he mentioned, the Bill of Rights was written AFTER the original Constitution, because more enlightened citizens demanded it”–orwell

As I read through the comments, I began to wonder if anyone could see through the “Myth of the Founding Fathers.” Happy to see you caught the hypocrisy inherent in the word, “Liberal.”I often think about the word “liberty” from the same root. When soldiers take time off we say they’re on liberty. Also, when a person takes unfair advantage we say he is taking liberties. Therefore, in my mind I do not define freedom and liberty as synonymous. The soldier on liberty is not a free man only on a break from the tedium. His lot remains as “not to question why, but to do and die.”

As to the Bill of Rights although as you say, “written AFTER” the body of the constitution that document became ratified only with those ten additions. In that light I consider them as a part of the U.S. Constitution. In fact if We the People were to write a new constitution, my suggestion is to make #1 the cornerstone of our real democracy of for and by the people. From there we follow the KISS–keep it simple stupid–doctrine. We accept that “rights and responsibilities” go hand in hand. I copied a bit from another Sam F post a bit further down from the one you replied to.

“Other defects of the Constitution, such as the three-fifths clause, failure to abolish slavery, etc, were necessary to gain acceptance by diverse states, while indirect presidential election was a later controversy. Democracy is a fairly messy process, often requiring unpleasant compromises, and its institutions must always be updated as times change.“–Sam F (my bold)

How wonderfully caviler of Mr. F to accept the “compromises” of the slaves and first nations’ peoples, the women and those not among the landed gentry as necessary for him to enjoy this “exclusive” democracy. No! Not a democracy! As it was in the beginning an oligarchy–hopefully We the People can create a better and more equal society based in mutual respect, respect for our Earth and a spirit of cooperation.

Sam F

June 25, 2017 at 08:05

Lin, there is no basis for the idea that accepting historical circumstances is somehow a devious scheme to profit in the present from an “exclusive democracy.” I did not say “accept” the compromises as desirable, only that slavery and the 3/5 compromise were accepted then to permit ratification. I am sure that you know that ratification could not have been secured otherwise. Nor did I say anything about “accepting” the injuries to native Americans, or the then-limited rights of women. Those are today obvious wrongs, not so obvious then.

Carefulness with history is not a scheme to deceive others, it is necessary to avoid misunderstandings of the options and intentions of the people involved. The same sort of care is necessary to understand the options and intentions of conflicting groups today.

State mythologies should be debunked, and we should be aware of the serious contradictions of the stated principles of the founders by acts of their contemporaries and sometimes themselves. But those who would discard the very language and principles and preceptors of our former democracy, would severely complicate the task of restoring democracy. It is better to recognize with our 20/20 hindsight the limitations of past eras in applying their declared principles, and move their limited gains forward in a manner comprehensible and reassuring to the people.

JWalters

June 23, 2017 at 20:51

Very good article and comment. Some added historical perspective and a proposal.

The owner group has tried to pay the worker group as little as possible since the end of the hunter-gatherer era. And the owner group has always, mostly, felt defensive about protecting their priviledged lifestyle. Writing in 1776 in The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith discussed the never-ending organizing among the owners to keep the workers from organizing. This included using laws and “legal” force to enforce that power disparity. The American revolution occurred within that basic context, and we’re still in it today.

Nevertheless, some members of the elite have worked to break down the elite’s power and bring more justice to the workers. For example, there is an excellent C-SPAN talk on Thomas Jefferson’s accomplishments in this regard. “Kevin Gutzman talked about his book Thomas Jefferson – Revolutionary: A Radical’s Struggle to Remake America, in which he argues that Thomas Jefferson was a political radical for his time.”https://www.c-span.org/search/?searchtype=Videos&query=thomas+jefferson+radical

A proposal – If workers could, through organizing and education, keep the workers’ birth rate down, the owners would be economically forced to pay more by that reduced supply of workers. Even if the workers took control and ran the world, so long as there continued to be overpopulation, many people having children they cannot take care of, then the problem of scarcity would continue to plague segments of society. So either way, overpopulation is a root problem for overall quality of life. In fact, even in hunter-gatherer societies populations would overgrow their territories and try to expand into neighbors’ territories, resulting in conflicts over resources.

good points here, JWalters! Also, technology serves to reduce the need for human labor. Remember John Henry? How many labor jobs does the forklift operator replace? Today computers can accomplish the work of thousands. A small staff of service techs keep the machines running and as you point out the surplus of desperate job applicants allows prospective employers to offer less and less for a job well done. However, as long as we maintain and support the capitalistic, hierarchical system and base our concerns in money distribution little will change. I consider the warrior paradigm to be the linchpin of all that ails us. Right you are that we should choose to reproduce responsibly. Our species is crowding the rest of creation from the face of the earth. Well, insects seem to flourish. Of course, we cannot allow the self-serving political class to makes family planning decisions for us. But, think about it, earning X fiat dollars per hour is not our number one problem. War is the major contributing factor in AGW, massive explosion of homeless peoples, famine and world-wide shortage of vital life-supporting resources. Why does the oligarchy take that “virtuous high road” restricting access to birth control? Maybe they need a fresh supply of cannon fodder?

Lets slow down and live!

JWalters

June 24, 2017 at 20:46

Good points. I agree the current attack on family planning is funded to preserve a plentiful supply of cannon fodder, and cheap labor.

backwardsevolution

June 24, 2017 at 03:10

Sam F – “But none of these defects were introduced into the Constitution to establish oligarchy.”

After all we talk about here day in and day out, can you honestly say this with a straight face? Really? Secret negotiations for the TPP, with not one consumer or labor representative on board, Congress and the Senate beholden to anybody but the people, our government pretends to fight ISIS, and they’re chasing non-existent Russian hackers. All a pretense. All to benefit the wealthy.

You told me last week that all three World Trade Center buildings came down in their own footprint because of fire. I don’t know how you could say this with a straight face either.

Sam, I think this is the way it has always been, the rich protecting themselves. If we happen to get table scraps, it’s only by accident.

Sam F

June 24, 2017 at 07:51

Yes, the rich have been protecting themselves all along, and have re-established an oligarchy. I have not denied this, and in fact listed the serious changes necessary to the Constitution to stop and prevent oligarchy. But none of the defects listed were deliberately introduced into the Constitution to establish oligarchy. To argue that would be blaming the patient for his disease.

I have not said that all three WTC buildings came down solely due to the fire, but that the first two apparently did so. I have carefully detailed the reasoning, and I think that such care is necessary.

We must cautiously examine the causes to find real solutions, rather than accept every statement about what we oppose. In one sense, all political action is conspiracy, but those who advance particular conspiracy theories with little evidence persuade no one. Much of our time here is spent on particular theories of past events, although we can see the problems and discuss solutions,

Gregory Herr

June 24, 2017 at 10:13

Sam, you are a remarkably intelligent man, and well-versed in a good deal of history. I have always liked the constructive conciliatory role you often play between commentators points of view where possible and needed, and think that at least two of the things that I notice you always come back to, the corruption of the judiciary and the problems associated with the concentration of economic power, are poignantly expressed. Without “replying”, or previously stating so, I have harbored something of a disagreement with your characterization of the Mideast conflagrations as “religious wars”, but the disagreement there may be more of a “technicality”, so to speak, I can’t really flesh that out right now. You have often referenced “blowback”, which is a term often favored (by many justly respected analysts of history and current events) in contemporary discussions of the phenomenon of terrorism. My take is, though there is such a thing, it is too often taken as the easy answer to the “why” of terrorism. I also am not of the mind that violent uprising will ever be effective in modern-day America…I reject violence completely as a means to political reform.
So anyway, I was truly shocked and dismayed to find that you, someone I highly respected, was putting forth such an effort to “reason” that Buildings 1 and 2 structurally failed due to fire. This is neither apparent nor reasonable. In fact, it’s sheer nonsense. The idea that even symmetrical damage due to fire across one or even several floors could induce the power vectors needed to symetricallly obliterate massive steel structures within a time frame that can ONLY infer the lack of lower resistance hallmarked by controlled demolition is wholly unscientific and absurd.

Cal

June 24, 2017 at 13:14

” We must cautiously examine the causes to find real solutions, rather than accept every statement about what we oppose.”>>>>

Very astute comment. People tend to accept anything put forth that agrees with their own ideology without any critical examination.

That is the problem on both sides of the divide.

JWalters

June 24, 2017 at 21:04

Sam F,

I will assert flatly that upon careful examination the evidence is overwhelming that 9/11 was an inside job. A simple, factual, rational introduction to this mountain of evidence is athttp://warprofiteerstory.blogspot.com

The ability to cover up such a crime is clear evidence for control of the mainstream media. That is what makes sites like Consortium News so important.

Sam F

June 25, 2017 at 08:30

Replying to Gregory and JWalters on 9/11, my concern is that alternative theories may distract us from the true causes of the aircraft attacks, which are potentially the same motives and groups as the alternative immediate causes.

I do not insist that no cause other than aircraft/fuel damage is possible. There are other potential beneficiaries, and it is very suspect that Bldg 7 came down as it did, and that explosive residues were found in the area (I have not studied that). Having done considerable related engineering (not as a structural engineer) I do not see additional immediate causes as necessary. But I will be pleased to hear of all additional evidence.

JWalters

June 25, 2017 at 18:49

Sam F,

If you have not looked into the Building 7 case then you have not looked into the evidence seriously. It frankly blows my mind that you would claim an alternative theory, which could be true, would be a distraction from the truth. The mountain of evidence that you don’t bother researching is considered conclusive by thousands of architects and engineers with directly related engineering experience, unlike yours. I gave you a link to a lot of very solid evidence and you apparently did not look into it. Only the truth, and in this case an alternative theory best fits the data, will lead us to the “true causes of the aircraft attacks”. Your cursory examination of the evidence make your comments borderline worthless on this topic. Given your obvious intelligence and knowledge, they also raise a question about your true purpose. It looks a lot like the tactic of trying to steer people away from the facts with a “reasonable man” facade. “I’m a reasonable man so just trust me and save yourself the trouble of going and reading that stuff.”

Gregory Herr

June 25, 2017 at 19:27

Certainly Sam, the true causes of the attacks are the heart of the matter, and distraction from the goal of understanding the “attacks” (what happened, how, and why) based on evidence should be avoided. Of course events of the day (and its related aftermath) are manifold and involve some complexity. So it’s not surprising that any number of ideas about various aspects of what happened, how, and why, are in circulation…particularly since the “official conspiracy theory” is so full of holes and unsatisfactory to the reasoning eye. So what are the evidentiary baselines, and what even does “alternate” mean? What has standing and what doesn’t? Where does evidence lead?
It isn’t even even truly established that Arabs with “knives” overcame four cockpits on that day without a single hijack distress signal being emitted and that Hanjour flew one of those planes with incredible skill into the Pentagon. It certainly isn’t established that the so-called “collapses” at the WTC were simply structural failures due to damage by impacts and fire. And we can go on and on about the official story…
What I am getting after here might be helped by reading F.G. Sanford’s comment in CN’s “Policing Truth” article. He refers to bonafide evidence regarding the JFK assassination that completely dispels the myth of Oswald being a lone gunman. In other words, it has long been factually evident that the official story about the assassination is untrue. I think the WTC evidence is along the same lines for 9/11. And what’s more, unraveling the reasons for the demolitions gets to motive (the why). I look at the Towers the same way I look at Parkland.

Sam F

June 24, 2017 at 08:05

I should note that your second paragraph lists recent evidence of oligarchy, but that would not argue that oligarchy was established in the Constitution, despite its lack of provisions against that.

historicus

June 24, 2017 at 19:37

Just for the record, Germany did not switch to full war production until 1942. it’s a common myth (they were socialists after all, expect this in capitalist accounts of them) that Germany regained its economic footing by preparing for global conquest. Fritz Reinhardt, a state secretary in the Reich Ministry of Finance, introduced the revolutionary program in 1933 that rebuilt Germany’s economy. The Labor Procurement Law of June 1 began the restoration of the shattered economy. It continued with the Building Repair Law passed later that summer, and was essentially completed with the Tax Relief Law, the Company Refinancing Law; and for farmers the Reich’s Food Producer’s Law, all legislated in September. The huge costs of the these plans were covered by the reduction in jobless benefits, and increases in corporate and sales taxes, to the extent that in October, Reinhart announced in Bremen, “expenditures and income of the Reich have balanced out.”

Millions of jobs were created for civilian infrastructure improvements. Contrary to persistent rumor, no more than 16.6% was allocated to military spending, and most of this was defensive, aimed at necessary precautions against a France that had invaded German territory thirty times in the previous two centuries.

FDR imitated Germany’s policies in his NRA, with the CCC and other alphabet agencies designed to put the unemployed back to work. The fatal difference is that his programs were financed by loans from the one-percenters, “the hyenas of international capital”, in the German leader’s words. Germany achieved full employment in four years, while the U.S. unemployment rate was still a staggering 14% after nine years of FDR’s policies, and the American people were saddled with massive deficit spending to repay the bankers, from which we have never since been freed.

Sam F

June 25, 2017 at 21:03

Thank you for this insight.

Joe Average

June 30, 2017 at 20:50

Several of your points don’t pass the smell test. The National Socialists were Socialists only in name. If they had been what they pretended to be, why did they prohibit the Communist Party and why did the National Socialists pursue Social Democrats and finally prohibited that Party, too (22 June 1933)? Unions had been smashed and replaced by the own union of the National Socialists (German Labour Front; German: Deutsche Arbeitsfront, DAF). They National Socialists threw in some bread crumbs for the masses (for example the state holiday 1. May), otherwise they were pretty much neo-liberal. Very helpful for rebuilding the shattered economy had been the use of forced labor (for example VW employed for forced labor from 1940 until 1945). Another beneficial aspect in restoring the economy had been Aryanization, to drive out the Jewish population and force them to leave the with hardly anything of worth and cashing in on the Haavara Agreement. With regard to my previous point about being neo-liberal I would like to remind you of Aktion T4 (Nazi Eugenics). Aktion T4 was a project to get rid of people deemed useless for society. Posters were printed which explained that each person with hereditary disease costs about 60000 Reichsmark from birth to death (Germany got its inspiration from the Eugenics programs of the US).

Another aspect that doesn’t fit your narrative is that the National Socialists had been supported by several German and International Industrialists and Bankers. Those Industrialists and Bankers made Hitler’s rise possible in the first place. Had there ever been a time in history when capitalists were in favor of social ideas?

(By the way: FDR ordered food to be destroyed in order to keep food prices from collapsing.)

Blackburn J.

June 29, 2017 at 05:20

Your critique of the article sheds some light on what has gone wrong and for me dovetails into what the article is about which is a gang of rich people meeting to protect and consolidate their interests first before any other. Economic oligarchy is only a natural percursor for plutocracy and never for true democracy.

Lin Cleveland

June 24, 2017 at 14:43

yes! It’s a long read, but worth the effort. I decided to copy the entire article so i can take my time learning and then I’m emailing the article to a friend so we can both discuss.

Blackburn J.

June 27, 2017 at 13:36

…and you are too lazy! An excellent article spanning centuries to shed more light on current issues written in this manner can only be best described as brilliantly concise and highly informative.